Her Name Was Lola
by BelletheWickedWitch
Summary: Jade West and Cat Valentine have been lying to everyone. Will Jade reveal her true self, and ruin everything they have worked for, for Tori?
1. Introduction

Ever since she came here, she's beaten me out for every part in every play. She is incredible. The way she immerses herself in a character is beyond any talent I've seen at this school. Watching her is like falling slowly into another reality. You believe everything she's saying so much, and you never want the story to end.

People forget, though, that I'm a good actress too. She's beaten me out for every single part, except maybe the one no one knows exists. I'm a good actress. Every single day, I take on the personality of this Goth girl that I have spent almost five years becoming. They believe me, every single one of them. Only my parents know the truth. That's why my dad hates me. His little girl has gone and changed herself into a scary demon of a girl for a fun acting challenge.

One day I'll tell them all – maybe.

For now, I am Jade Agatha West, the toughest bitch at Hollywood Arts High School, with the hottest boyfriend and the strangest friends. People believe everything I say. I have the ability to ruin everyone socially. I am invited to every party. I am respected and feared by all….except her.

The way she looks at me makes me want to melt away into who I truly am.

I am Jadelyn Amanda West. I like romantic comedies and wearing green fluffy dresses, like the one I wore at my sixth grade graduation. That was the last day I was Jadelyn Amanda. I had gotten into Hollywood Arts, the most prestigious performing arts school this side of the 90210. I was going to make every moment count. I would stop at nothing to be the most amazing actress I could be. My mom and I developed an idea for an experiment. We'd seen an episode of _Zoey 101_ where Lola pretends to be scary and gothic to see if she can pull it off. My mom decided that that would be the perfect personality switch for me – my complete opposite. We went shopping for dark clothes, fake piercings, fake hair extensions, dark makeup, and even body paint to create a tattoo that my mom recolors every morning to hold the illusion.

My best friend, Caterina, was going to HA too. She had to be let in on the secret. She loved it. She decided to try it, too. She became Cat Valentine. Her blonde ponytail and her tomboy outfits were replaced with girly dresses and magenta tresses. Her eloquent manner of speaking and clever ideas became ditzy flyaway comments and tales of the brother she never had. Together, we redecorated our rooms to further prove to any friends we made that we were who we claimed to be.

We were so excited to go to HA. For two years, we kept up the charade. We were the best of friends, and the greatest talents than HA had never truly known. And then she showed up. Tori Vega. She was beautiful, smart, girly, fun, happy, and an amazing talent. She was everything I wanted. Jadelyn Amanda would have gone to the end of the earth to be with her. But I was Jade now. I had Beck, and I couldn't give up my charade for this girl.

My feelings for her started the second she opened her mouth at the Big Showcase, replacing the strange vocal stylings of her tone-deaf sister. She was an entity unto herself. I'd never been moved like that in my entire life. And then she started class that Monday.

Jadelyn Amanda would have run up to her and gushed. Jade was tough as nails – she couldn't. I couldn't. Instead, I poured coffee on her head.

My feelings for her grew until they resembled something quite like love, like what I was supposed to feel for Beck. But Beck wasn't in love with me. Beck was in love with Jade. I wasn't Jade, I was Jadelyn Amanda, and Jadelyn Amanda is in love with Tori Vega. I want to grab her wrist and pull her into the janitors closet and kiss her with everything I'm worth. But I can't break the façade. I am Jade Agatha West, and I am going to keep up this game, because I am nothing without it.

I want to break. I want to melt away Jade's shell to reveal Jadelyn to Tori. If she's going to continue being amazing, I know I can't keep up this character forever.

But I sure as hell can try, at least for now.


	2. Wests Side Story

**A/N: This was originally going to be a oneshot, but then I watched "The Worst Couple" and suddenly I had all these ideas burrowing into my brain and I had to make use of them. So, now it's a chapter story.**

**Disclaimer 1: I don't own and am in no way affiliated with Victorious, although how cool would that be?**

**Disclaimer 2: I know Dan said that Bade could possibly get back together, so if that happens before I finish my story, my story will become AU, sort of like "what if they never got back together."**

Beck broke up with me today. He broke up with Jade. He didn't love her anymore. I waited for him. I wanted him to come and get me and tell me that everything would be alright. Jadelyn Amanda wanted him to look into her eyes and tell her that he loves her. But he loved Jade, and every day Jade was changing. I don't even know who she is anymore. Angry, scissor-obsessed (I have no clue how that one started, but I liked evolving that character trait), dark, but who is she, deep inside?

Deep inside Jade West is me. I've spent five years inside of her. I feel her pain. She is me. Her pain is my pain. Some days it feels like a role I'm playing, but sometimes it feels like who I truly am. I'm losing track of which is which. As I broke down in the car ride home, I wondered if it was something Jade would do. I had broken down over Beck before, but that was an excuse let Tori see me vulnerable without revealing Jadelyn to her. Of course it's something Jade would have done. I have no restrictions on her, no rules. I make it all up as I go along.

Sometimes I forget who Jadelyn Amanda really is. I mean, I get to be myself when I'm at home, but with rehearsal and school and the ping-pong team and my social life I rarely have time to be myself anymore. I'm always Jade. And today Jade and the love of her life broke up. As I broke down in the car ride home, I realized that he was the love of my life too. I loved him with everything I had. But he never loved me. He loved Jade. And it wasn't enough, and it showed.

Well, now that I was sitting and feeling sorry for myself, I had to start thinking about Tori. I loved her too, I suppose, but with her it was different. With Beck it was romantic; it was everything I ever wanted. I loved the ideas of his love; I loved his gestures, his attitude towards me. Did I love _him _with everything I had or just the idea of love? Ugh this was way too confusing for a car ride. Maybe that's why it didn't work out.

With Tori it was something more, deep down. They were different loves. With Beck I loved every aspect of him, of love. With Tori I loved her. With Tori it was simple. With Tori I wasn't acting. With Tori was the potential for everything I'd worked for to come cataclysmically collapsing down on me.

I wanted to drive back into her driveway and run back into Tori's house, straight into Beck's arms. I wanted to go back to the safety of my character. I wanted to go back to a part I knew I could play. I haven't played single in three years; I have no idea how Jade would even play single. Jadelyn would eat a pint of ice cream and watch _Practical Magic_ and cry her eyes out and wish I had a guy like Keith Urban as my husband.

After thinking about it, I knew what Jade would do. She would rebound – hard.


	3. Rebound! In the Name of Love

**A/N: Oh, my gosh. I got reviews. And people read this. I'm freaking the freak out right now. So here's the deal. I would LOVE to update daily, like I'm trying to do now, but next week I have my musical and then after that is the pile-all-assessments-into-one-week last week of the trimester. So you will probably not hear too much from this story after this week until perhaps the second week of March. Just a quick heads up. Oh, and if you didn't already realize, this is all going to be in Jade/Jadelyn's point of view, I don't plan on changing that.**

I drove into my driveway and just sat there. I wondered if I should tell my mom what happened. My dad would laugh and say "I told you so." He's been saying ever since I started dating Beck that lying through my teeth in a relationship would only end in heartbreak. My mom agreed with him, although she was a bit more supportive.

I went inside. No one was home. I left my parents a note describing what happened. I didn't want to talk. I wanted to go up to my room and wallow in misery.

I couldn't have a pity party, though. I'd already done that. I went up to the darkness that filled my room and decided to start planning. Valentine's Day was tomorrow, and Jade West was going to get revenge. I needed to plan out exactly how she would show Beck who exactly he broke up with.

I opened my closet doors. The first thing I saw was the green poofy dress in the back of my closet. It contrasted considerably to the dark-washed colors surrounding it. I missed my poofy dress. Ugh! Focus, Jadelyn. You have to plan Jade's wardrobe for tomorrow. You have to plan everything. You can't screw up. Not this time.

My computer beeped with notifications from the various tabs I'd left open. The Pearphone XT was coming out tomorrow. I wonder if Tori knew yet. She would be so thrilled. I clicked on my "The Slap" tab. Beck had already changed his status. I can't believe it's real.

That reminded me to go back to my closet. I picked out a maroon top with a deep sweetheart neckline to pair with a leather jacket and some black acid wash jeggings. I grabbed a couple light pink extensions. I hadn't worn them since I dyed my hair black, and I was eager for the Valentine's Day look. The pink may have been a little bit of Jadelyn leaking through, sure, but I'd just been broken up with, no one was really going to care about my hair.

Now I had to figure out exactly what I was going to do tomorrow. Who would be my rebound guy? I thought for a second. I could use Andre, he had made it pretty clear at one point that he liked me (although Beck had no clue), but I was pretty sure he was over it. Besides, he would never date his friend's ex, and again, there was the whole likes-Jade-not-Jadelyn issue. Besides, Caterina likes him. I could always use Robbie…ew, no. Jade would never do that.

I needed to pick someone who was okay with quick relationships. Someone who wouldn't care. Someone who'd used girls before.

Oh my god.

Ryder Daniels.

No, I can't do that to Tori. She was so hurt by him. She wasn't even that hurt by Steven.

But Jade doesn't care about Tori.

But Jadelyn does.

But I'm not Jadelyn.

But I am.

Tori would never speak to Jade again.

Tori would never speak to me again.

I stopped pacing. I then realized I was pacing. Who the heck paces? I was going to wear a hole into this carpet if I didn't stop. I needed to buck up and start acting like Jade. Jade would go for it and use Ryder. She would use him and lose him. She wouldn't care what anyone thought, especially not Tori.

But if I hurt Tori, willingly, then that made me no better than Jade. And Jade was supposed to be my complete opposite. I was so conflicted. I had no clue what to do.

I called the one person who I knew could make sense of it all: Caterina. She picked up after two rings.

"Hey, Jade! Are you okay? You left so quickly. You know, one time my brother…" Shoot. Caterina was Cat, which means that she hadn't left Tori's poker game yet.

"Caterina, you need to get somewhere private. I have to talk to you. I need guidance. _Please._ It's about Tori and Beck and Jade, and I'm losing it!" I wondered what Tori would think if she saw me now.

Caterina didn't know about my feelings for her. We spent hours discussing our characters on weekends, but when the topic switched to ourselves, I would make a flyaway comment about my relationship with Beck. She thought that I was in love with him. She thought that I just really wanted to be Tori's friend. I usually tried to bring the conversation back around to her. I knew she had a crush on Andre and that she felt so bad because Robbie was so nice and she didn't want to break his heart. Nevermind.

"Kk!" She'd already shouted into the phone. I heard her footsteps walk up Tori's steps and into some other room. "Okay, Jadelyn, what is so important that I had to leave my _amazing_ hand behind to console you?" Her voice dropped an octave as she became Caterina again. Five years and it still startled me a little bit every time.

"Jade needs a rebound, and the only guy I can think of is Ryder."

"Are you nuts? You spend all of this time talking about how you want to find some way in character and still be Tori's really close friend, and then you want to hook up with one of the worst boyfriends she's ever had?" I hate it when Caterina's right.

"So what do I do?"

"Are there _any_ other guys? Any at all? If you do this to Tori you will _never_ be able to be friends with her. And you and I both know that you want that more than anything." Ugh! Must she always be right about everything?

"I can't think of a single guy who would go for a random hookup, no stings, that isn't icky or pervy or expecting it to happen more than once." I honestly couldn't. Ryder was a cheater and a jerk, but I know he'd never push me too far or expect me to hook up with him again. "All I need is a couple, nice, rebound-y days, and I'm pretty sure Ryder's the only one who could give that to me."

"You know you sound like a total slut, right?" Caterina asked.

"I know."

"And you know Tori will hate Jade forever."

"But Jade doesn't want to be Tori's friend. Jadelyn does. And Tori can't know Jadelyn. And Jade….ugh! When did my life get so complicated?"

"When did you decide to start living this double life?"

"Touche. I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Have fun with Ryder," Caterina said, sarcastically, clicking off the phone. I know she didn't want me to hurt Tori. I know she was right. But I also knew that it would be exactly what Jade would do. She would hurt Tori just because she was hurting herself. So I updated my Slap page with something that insulted Tori, and sent a quick message to Ryder.

_I need a rebound. Few days max. U in?_ It wasn't long before he texted back.

_I'm in._

**A/N: I did not expect the chapter to end up so long. What did you guys think? I mean, if you think Jadelyn is playing Jade too out-of-character, just shoot me a review and let me know.**

**P.S. Yes, that was a shameless plug to get you all to review. *):o)**


	4. Don't Go Breaking My Heart

**A/N: More people reviewed! Ah! I am so excited that people like this. Happy Valentine's Day, oh amazing readers!**

Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple. I fiddled with the wooden beads on the red chord. I had made this necklace when I was seven. It was in a box in the back of my closet that was filled with random items from my past. Most of my stuff was in the attic, but I kept one box of special items. I remembered making this. I wore it so proudly for Valentine's Day.

I tossed it back into my closet and got changed for school. Today was Valentine's Day, my big day with Ryder. I couldn't stop thinking of Tori.

I remembered the blue and black outfit she wore when she got her revenge on him. She looked so hot and confident. He didn't even care. He went out with Andre's date from the Prome a day after Andre dumped her. He'll never change. No matter how far Tori went, he will always be a player. I felt so bad for Tori.

Back on track, Jadelyn. Jade needs a rebound. Focus on that.

I texted Ryder the details of what would happen. I mean, not too specific, because then it would be too obvious that I was playing a character, but I had to let him know the story.

_Meet me main staircase. Remember, try 2 get past first base and I break ur jaw._

_Ur pushy. Fine. Happy V-day, babe._

Walking into school, I almost decided to ditch my plan. The first person I saw was Tori.

"Hey Jade! How are you? Are you okay?" She sounded so concerned for me. I wanted to fall into her arms right there. I wanted to break down crying again. Then I saw Ryder.

"Out of my way, Vega," I muttered, storming past her. I met Ryder at the stairs. He winked, and I grabbed his chin, pressing his face against mine. His lips tasted like coffee watered down with milk. It was disgusting. Although, if he liked milk in his coffee, the black coffee staining my lips probably tasted vulgar to him.

He pulled back before I did. I plastered a smirk on my face. Now would be the worst time to break character. I glanced over at Tori, who had now been joined by Caterina and Andre. Andre looked confused. Caterina had a blank look on her face, but I could see the disapproval in her eyes. I tried not to look at Tori, but I couldn't help it. In her eyes was heartbreak. _We could have been friends, now_, her face told me,_ why did you just do that?_ I brushed my arm along Ryder's chest, and walked to Sikowitz's classroom, straight past an open-mouthed Beck.

I walked into the classroom, and the first thing I realized was that I had no place to sit. I always sit next to Beck. Where do I sit now? I ran through the possibilities in my mind, and ultimately decided that Jade would claim their old seats, and make Beck move.

I plopped myself down in the chair and waited for class to start. There was a tap on my shoulder. I turned to see Caterina staring at me.

"You really hurt her," she told me with that all-knowing glare on her face.

"You know I didn't have another option."

"That's not entirely true. Jade could have skipped school; Jade could have cut up another trash can in the janitor's closet. You could have played Jade so many ways. But you chose to hurt Tori."

"Look," I started, "I don't remember how to play single. I don't remember how to be Jade without a guy. Beck didn't just hurt Jade, Caterina, he hurt me too. I need something safe right now. That's what I need to play. Jade is safe with a guy in her life, and she's safe when she goes out of her way to hurt Tori. I needed Ryder, Caterina, and if -" I was interrupted by the sound of footsteps wandering into the classroom. Eli came in and took his seat, followed by Sinjin and his band of strange stage crewians. Beck came in, glanced at me, and took Cat's seat. Caterina sat down in Beck's old seat. "Won't it look like you're choosing sides if you sit with me?" I asked her.

"Everyone deserves LOVE!" Caterina shouted in her Cat voice, flinging her arms wide. She whacked me in the face. "Oopsies!" She told me. Tori walked in, and, although her face didn't look puffy, her mascara left a few stains under her eye, at least implying that she had held back tears, if not cried. I felt so guilty. "Don't you see what your little rebound game has done?" Caterina hissed at me.

Sikowitz wasn't here yet. I got up out of my chair and stormed out the door. Jade was going to take the rest of the period off.

I didn't have Andre, Cat, Beck, Tori, or Robbie in my theatrical dance class, but Ryder was in History of Rock and Roll with me. (That was one piece of Jadelyn that escaped. Classic Rock was amazing. I could just sit and listen to Queen, the Beatles, and the Stones all day.)I plopped down next to him. He draped his arm across my shoulder and drew my face towards him. I kissed him until the teacher walked in. It felt comfortable, safe.

I zoned out throughout the entire period. I'd already read ahead in our unit of influences on classic bands. We were talking about Elvis' influence on the Beatles today. Like I said, I'd read ahead. I knew all about it.

I was very aware of Ryder's arm against my shoulders. It didn't feel right. It felt like acting. Playing Jade usually didn't feel like acting. Then again, this whole day had been more carefully planned than anything I'd done in a while.

What is I did confront Tori? What if I sought solace from her? She could never be a rebound. I wouldn't let her be just a playtoy for me. She was worth so much more than that. I couldn't talk to her now. Not when everything had just fallen apart for Jade. Tori would just assume that all she is to me is a rebound. She would push me away and not talk to me forever. As it is, she probably wasn't going to talk to me again for a long time.

I hate Valentine's Day. I mean, Jade always did (it wasn't a real holiday, just some made up excuse to buy candy and flowers and Hallmark cards) but this year Jadelyn hated it, too. Everyone who was single called it "Singles Appreciation Day." I thought that was really stupid. I wanted to be with someone, go on a date, and have romance. It wasn't like I was going to get that from Ryder.

I felt him squeeze my shoulder. I looked up.

"Jade," asked my teacher, "what is the answer?"

I-I'm sorry," I stuttered, suddenly aware that more than half the period was over, therefore I'd spent more than half the period thinking about Tori. I had to stop doing that. It might affect my characterization of Jade. It already did. I just freaking stammered. "Could you repeat the question?"

"What was the general opinion from the Beatles on the jam session between them and Elvis?"

"Awkward. Disappointed. I mean, their hero was a dumb druggie who didn't appreciate his fans, aside from those over-zealous female fans," I muttered.

I focused on class. Jade didn't need any more daydreaming. She was rebounding. She was a bitch. Jade West was not in love with Tori Vega.

Unfortunately, I was.


	5. 19th Nervous Breakdown

**A/N: I apologize for the un-Valentine's Day-like chapter of yesterday. I promise romance will be in the air eventually! I put a little bit into this chapter, but, like I said, it's going to take some time before Jadelyn and Tori can become Jori. **

I woke up this morning and it was the next day. It wasn't like one of those movies where something bad happens, and it's always better the next day. I still felt like crap. I never should have agreed to my few days with Ryder. It wasn't fun, and it was ultimately killing me to see Tori so sad.

Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple. I found myself fiddling with that necklace again. I slipped it into the pocket of my skirt before I pulled on a faded red sweatshirt. I needed something to cling to today. I needed something to keep me from collapsing into this slowly crumbling fake reality I'd built for myself.

I sometimes feel like the only reason I'd kept up with the charade for so long was because Caterina wanted to keep it up. I mean, if I break character, Cat will revealed too. We haven't really talked about the personal ramifications of our characters. We haven't had any conversations as Jadelyn and Caterina that didn't revolve around our characters since middle school. I missed her.

Sighing, I went downstairs, made my coffee, gave my parents hugs goodbye, and left for school. _Oh shoot_, I thought to myself as I pulled up to a stoplight, _I forgot my eyebrow piercing!_ There was no hole. People would realize it was a fake. I would have to go home. And that's what I did. I had screwed up everything enough as it was. Jade West was late sometimes. It happened. She didn't make a big deal of it. No one had to know _why_. I wasn't dating Beck anymore; I had no one to account to.

I walked into Sikowitz's classroom, late as expected. The class turned to look at me. I slumped into my chair. Cat was sitting in Beck's old seat again. I wondered if this would become a regular thing.

"Ah, Jade, you're late!" Sikowitz exclaimed.

"Yeah, yeah, don't make such a big deal of it," I muttered.

"You're a sour coconut today, aren't you?" He asked. I rolled my eyes. "Beck, Tori, continue with you scene!"

"But I don't understand why!" I heard Tori's voice wail.

"I didn't ask for this to happen! I never wanted to fall for you! You were never part of the plan!" Beck countered.

"Michael, what are you even saying?"

"I'm saying this." Beck grabbed Tori and kissed her. Seeing my ex and my…well, whatever I felt for Tori, seeing the two of them kiss was just too much. I stormed out. It was okay. Jade would do that. She hated Tori, and always saw her as a threat to her relationship with Beck.

Out in the hallway by the main staircase, I ran into Ryder. I hadn't seen him yet today. I regretted the rebound thing, and was planning to make a point of avoiding him.

"Hey babe. What's wrong?" He asked. Instead of answering, I threw myself against him, smushing my mouth against him. I needed to feel something right now. Anything. I needed to feel safe. Ryder's arms, his mouth, they felt safe. Not the safety that provided a certain, solace, per say, but a safety in that I knew _exactly _what I was doing.

His tounge slipped its way into my mouth. I didn't like that. Jade was rebounding. I knew that. So I went with it.

"Jade?" Cat asked. Apparently she was the one who Sikowitz sent to get me. Or perhaps she volunteered. I pulled away from Ryder and walked back to class. Only Caterina could see the tear that escaped from my eyes. She wiped it away and pulled out some touch-up. "Don't break character," she breathed, "Not now, after all this time. Please." I glanced behind me; no one was there. I gave Caterina a quick hug. Then I punched her in the shoulder.

"Leave me the heck alone!" I breathed back. I put on my angry face. I stormed back through the doors and took my place in the back of the classroom.

_We're done. Enough. Im sick of u._ I texted Ryder in the middle of Trig.

_Fine._ I got the reply soon enough. Thank God I was done with that.

Lunchtime came and I was prepared to just ditch the rest of the day. My mom would kill me, though. I could always fake sick. I was good at faking. I spent every day in a fake personality. So that is what I did. But I had to do something first.

I ran my plan to fake sick past Caterina. She thought Jade was going a little soft, and she would just ditch. I argued that I could make allowances because I'd just been through a bad breakup. She relented.

I dumped the can of Mocha-Cola into the toilet. It sounded like I was throwing up – I'd read that in a book somewhere. The actress in me was actually so excited to try it out. I giggled. Shoot. Jade doesn't giggle. I hiccupped to cover it up. I shoved the can into my bag and flushed the toilet.

"Jade, is that you?" came Cat's voice. She and Tori had just entered the bathroom.

"Ugh, yeah," I mumbled, "I'm sick."

"I'll take you to the nurse," Tori offered. That wasn't supposed to happen. Cat was supposed to offer, and then Tori was just there to relay the information to Beck, Robbie, and Andre.

"Sure," I mumbled. See, this is why I hated improv. You had no real control over what happened.

"Kk, I'll tell the boys!" Cat bounced out.

"Wait!" I called. She couldn't just leave me here with the one person I was trying to avoid.

Tori grabbed my arm and helped me up.

"Why Ryder?" She asked. Really, Tori? Now? Not the best time – I just threw up for Christ's sake! Keep your cool, Jade.

"I just picked a guy. Why should I be alone on Valentine's Day because of some stupid breakup? I'm Jade freaking West!" Well, that certainly didn't make me sound like I was sick. I turned away from Tori and coughed into my elbow. I adjusted my posture to look more like an invalid. When I looked back, it seemed that Tori accepted my quick explanation. Good. I couldn't have her knowing the truth, now could I?

"Hey, can I ask you something? Do you know if any guys seem to like me?" She asked.

"What!" I asked, shocked. I covered it up quickly with, "No, Vega, unlike what you seem to believe, the world doesn't _actually _revolve around you. Ugh," I groaned, clutching my stomach.

"Well, someone left this in my locker." She said, handing me a red chord, strung with wooden beads.

Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple.

"No, Vega, I'm sorry, I have no idea which guy would leave that for you."


	6. As Long As You Love Me

**A/N:** **Double update? Well, I had limited homework today. I have no clue where this story is going exactly, except for this one general idea. So if it seems sort of weird to you, it's because I'm just letting this story take me along for the ride. Oh, and I love it that people are reading this and reviewing it and stuff! That makes me so happy! Do any of you have any ideas as to where you want this story to go? Send me your opinions; I'd love to hear them!**

**Sorry. Weirdly long a/n today.**

Tori ended up deciding that I was too sick to drive home myself. She ended up driving me. I guess I overacted that one just a little bit. Not that I minded, of course, but I'm pretty sure Jade would have. Jade was sick, though, so she didn't really get much of a say.

I was _dying_ to tell Tori that I was the one who gave her that necklace. Jadelyn Amanda would have been so proud of herself that she would have let it slip within the first two minutes. Actually, no. I'm a much better actress than that. After all, I am Jadelyn Amanda.

Tori spent the entire car ride home talking about it. It made her so happy. I felt so happy about it. I stared out the window to avoid her seeing my smile. We needed to get to my house fast, before I completely broke character and made out with her at a stoplight. Which I was considering. Not seriously considering, but thinking about nonetheless.

A fire rose to my cheeks as that thought wormed its way into my mind. Tori noticed, and when we made it to the stoplight, she asked, "Are you okay, are you getting a fever?" She placed her hand over my forehead to make sure I was feeling alright.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, Vega. Why are you being so nice to me?" I snapped, "I'm not your friend." I honestly had no clue why she was doing this. _Stay in character, Jadelyn, stay in character_, I kept thinking to myself. I was probably a bit harsher than I should have been. Tori gave me a weird look and removed her hand.

"I am your friend," she said. We pulled into my driveway and she took my arm and led me into the house.

"Come in," I muttered, as she invited herself inside, "you really don't need to stay."

"Are you kidding? Cat and Robbie aren't going to let me anywhere near them when I get back. I can't handle Set Design III without them. I'm staying."

Tori had never been over before. She looked shocked at the size of the place. My dad made a lot of money, what can I say?

"Jadelyn, honey, the nurse called, did you fake sick again? You have to stop doing that! I know with your cha…" My mom walked into the room and stopped what she was saying almost abruptly when she realized that it was Tori, not Caterina, standing beside me. "Jade, you know what I said about you skipping, even with permission." Her tone changed to harsh. She had been in a few plays in high school and college, so she knew a little bit about acting herself.

"Bug off, mom!" I said, dragging Tori upstairs to my room.

"No girlfriends or boyfriends in the bedroom!" My mom cried. Leave it to my mom to embarrass me like that. I don't think even Caterina knew I was bisexual, and now here's my mom blabbing to Tori. Really, Mom, really?

"She's not my girlfriend!" I called back. I dragged Tori into my room. It was nearly all black, with reds and dark greens scattered here or there. I loved the storybook eeriness that came out of the room. I think I might keep it like this even if I give up being Jade.

"So you aren't really sick?" Tori asked. Leave it to her to just not talk about the fact that she just learned that I was bisexual. I mean, it wouldn't matter to her, of course. Tori was great like that. She accepted everyone, regardless of who they were, where they were from…..

"Don't care who you are, where you're from, don't care what you did, as long as you love me…" I began to sing softly to myself. I didn't even notice I was doing that until Tori interrupted me.

"Backstreet Boys?" Shoot. Jade was supposed to be into classic rock. I mean, I am, Jadelyn or Jade, but Jade wasn't supposed to be listening to 90s pop bands! Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Alanis Morissette, Pat Benatar _occasionally,_ Dance Gavin Dance, Panic! At the Disco, they were all on Jade's iPod. I mean ANYTHING but Backstreet Boys!

"What's it to you?" I asked, in the most Jade-like manner I could muster. I changed the subject back, "No, I'm not sick. You gonna rat me out?"

"No," Tori answered, "we're already excused for the day as it is. What movies do you have?" Well that wasn't good. I had the _Scream_ movies, but they weren't _really_ horror movies. Aside from that I had _Just Go With It, Step Up 2: The Streets, Easy A, _and of course _Practical Magic_ and _Titanic_. The Harry Potter and LOTR movies were downstairs, which were the closest movies I could come up with that Jade would actually watch. I didn't want to leave my room though, because I was afraid my mom would say something else to ruin my life. Then I remembered something.

"I have season 7 of _Law and Order: SVU_." I didn't actually, but I knew that Tori hated that show.

"Can we not?" She asked, just like I had predicted. I looked thoughtful for a moment, before getting up and going to my closet (where I have all these movies), grabbing _Titanic_, and tossing it to her.

"My dad got me this. He doesn't know me to well," I told her, rolling my eyes. Everything I was doing felt forced. I couldn't let it get to me, though. I had kept up this charade for five years; I couldn't let this girl break me. She updated the Slap faster than you could even _tell_ gossip. Everyone would know and I would be ruined.

"That's great! I love this movie!" Tori said, popping the disc into my DVD player. Right, we were doing that. I couldn't keep losing myself in these daydreams.

We sat on my bed and watched it. At some points Tori would grab my arm and squeal. I would be doing the exact same thing, except I was focusing way harder on Jade Agatha West than on Leonardo DiCaprio's hair. I would love more than anything than to wrap my arms around her and pull her close to me. But Jade was straight, and Jade hated romance movies.

I sighed and leaned back against my pillows, focusing my thoughts and controlling my actions. It was a lot harder than I thought. At one point, when what's-his-face was putting the Heart of the Ocean on Rose, I grabbed the red-chorded necklace from Tori's hands and placed it around her neck, all romantic-like. She giggled, and gave me a funny look. Shoot.

It was going to be a long next couple of hours.


	7. Listen To Your Heart

**A/N: Well, alrighty then! It's been an interesting day. At any rate, I'm stuck chilling backstage at rehersal , so I might as well find some time to write for you all. (Update: I went home early and finished this up after dinner) I had more readers yesterday that I've EVER HAD! Eep! That's so exciting for me! Why do you guys even like this story? Review and send me ideas, though, I need them. I know this chapter is pretty much just characterization filler, but wait, there's a plot twist! ;)**

After we finished watching the movie, Tori went home. I have never needed more self control in my life. I wanted to scream. I ended up grabbing a pint of ice cream from the freezer and going up to my room instead of dinner. I could not deal with my mom right now. I decided not to do my homework; I was sick, after all. I could easily get extensions from my teachers. I popped _Practical Magic_ into my DVD player. It was my favorite movie, and it never failed to make me happy.

Until today, that is. I sat there and glared at Sandra Bullock as Sally found the love of her life. It wasn't fair. She got her perfect family and two different husbands and I couldn't even get a decent high school relationship? Beck was a lie, and Jade is straight. Jade is straight. Why the hell did I make Jade straight?

When I woke up the next morning I was all sticky. I'd fallen asleep watching the movie, and the carton of ice cream had melted on my face. It was like that Ke$ha concert all over again. I felt genuinely sick for a second, thinking about the copious amounts of ice cream we ate.

I got out of the shower. I was running late – I usually showered before I went to bed. I pulled out my blue extensions and my silver eyebrow piercing. I grabbed random clothes – they were all black, they had to go together – and some chain necklaces. I barely glanced at the green dress hanging in the corner of my closet. When I did, it held my glance for a second.

Life was so simple before the lies. That's what a lot of people call acting – lying with an excuse. Unfortunately, in my case, it was pretty much true. I was lying to everyone except for Caterina. But the only reason I wasn't lying to her was because she was part of the lie itself. I just wanted to cut Jade loose. I wanted to be Jadelyn again. I wanted to wear my puffy green dress to the Prome and ask Tori to be my date. I wanted to go to school without irritating metal pinching my eyebrow. I wanted to go for a day at the beach without having to ask my mom to draw my tattoo crisply.

On that thought, I headed downstairs for breakfast.

"I need the car today, so I'm going to drive you to school. You can just say I was being a bitch about you being sick if anyone asks." My mom bombarded me before I even got downstairs. This was not good. She would want to talk about Tori, and she would go all "Mom" on me with the "do what your heart tells you is the right thing" spiel.

"Sure," I sighed. I didn't really have a choice in the matter. She handed me a bagel and I grabbed my bag and we headed out the door.

"So, who's the girl you had over yesterday?" She asked, the second I had my seatbelt on.

"That was…Tori," I answered cautiously.

"That was Tori? I thought I said no girlfriends!" My mom knew all about Tori. I tell my mom everything. I know that sounds lame, because I'm almost 17, but she helps me keep track of it all. Also, I kind of love my mom.

"Mom, she's not my girlfriend! Jade is straight, remember?"

"Oh, honey. I know." She put her hand on my arm and looked at me as we pulled up to the stoplight.

"I mean, I want her to be my girlfriend, but I can't have her fall for Jade. Not after what happened with Beck. I can't be in a relationship when the person I'm falling for is falling for someone else." My mom gave my shoulder a squeeze.

"You could always tell her, you know."

"Are you nuts?" I asked her, "That girl updates the Slap with every secret she's told! She's even made vague references to our fake ping-pong team! It's a wonder we haven't been sent to juvie." Yeah, my mom knew about the ping-pong team, too.

"Well, whatever you want to do. Just listen to your heart," she told me. See, I told you she would say that. Then, of course, being who she is, and me being Jadelyn, we broke into song.

"Listen to your heart! When he's calling for you, listen to your heart! There's nothing else you can do!" We sang until we reached the lot. I hugged her goodbye and got out of the car before I the car entered the lot, so that no one would see me. I'd get a ride home from Caterina.

I was actually really happy right now. I liked talking with my mom, even if it didn't really get me anywhere. I turned on my iPod and hit shuffle. Jade would avoid people with legitimate reason (headphones!) and I could listen to music and stay happy for first period. I wouldn't have to deal with my issues for at least twenty more minutes.

I checked my schedule, and I actually didn't have Acting, my one class with Tori, today. Satisfied that I could avoid my issues all day, I sat in front of my lockers and stuck my legs out in front of me in a very Jade-like manner. "You Make My Dreams Come True" by Hall and Oates was playing. It's almost impossible not to be happy whilst listening to that song. I closed my eyes and just sat there, immersed in the music.

The song ended, and I opened my eyes. I looked down and there was a note on my lap.

I opened it, and almost couldn't breathe.

It wasn't Caterina's handwriting, and it sure as heck wasn't Cat's.

I was going to throw up, for real this time.

I went into the bathroom, threw up my bagel, and flushed the note away.

I had to forget what it had just said, pretend it didn't exist.

But I couldn't think of anything else.

_I know you were the one who gave Tori that necklace, Jadelyn Amanda._


	8. Cold Hearted Snake

**A/N: I'm so sorry I haven't posted in a while! Like I said, I've been so busy with this musical on top of regular schoolwork. Unfortunately, that means that I can't update daily anymore. I might update daily once spring break comes around. Who knows – I might even get to a conclusion! But that is all in the future, you amazing readers. For now, enjoy the awesomeness created by Dan Schneider mixed with the strangeness emitted from my mind!**

Someone knew. Someone knew who wasn't Caterina or my mom or my dad. And it wasn't Tori, Beck, Andre, or Robbie – I would have recognized the handwriting in an instant. Well, I had to check and make sure with Robbie, but that's beside the point. The point was that I don't know who this person was, but someone had discovered my secret. Someone who wasn't my friend. Someone who wouldn't understand.

And on top of all of that I was still dealing with this stupid crush on Tori, keeping it from Caterina, keeping it from Tori. Also I had schoolwork. I had this wonderful English in-class essay first period on _Sense and Sensibility_. Usually when reading it, I felt like Elinor, the sensible character, but as she grew to have more sensibility, I associated with her more strongly than before. I suppose if you haven't read the book, you would have no clue what I'm talking about. The point is I've been feeling lately like I'm growing reckless for love, instead of careful and safe, like I used to be. Nothing made the matter more clear than what happened next.

I sighed, and closed my locker, before I felt a small hand grip my wrist and drag me towards Tori's locker. No, now it was past Tori's locker, and into the janitor's closet. I hated being in here. It smelled. Why is it that this is where my friends and I unconsciously picked to have our heart-to-hearts?

"Do you like Tori?" Caterina asked.

"Yeah, of course I do," I said. Caterina knew that I wanted her to be my friend more than anything.

"No, not as a friend, Jadelyn. Do you have feelings for her?" She asked. Shoot.

"Why would you think that?" I asked. Seriously, how did she figure that out?

"Your favorite necklace is around her neck, and she's boasting about how some guy slipped it into her locker." Great. I should have known that Caterina would realize that it was my necklace. See, this is why she and my mom are the masterminds behind our double lives, not me.

"Oh," I said lamely, "Well, yeah. I really like her, Caterina. As way more than a friend."

"So you're a lesbian?" She asked. I saw her eyes narrow. Uh-oh.

"No, bisexual, actually." How the heck was I supposed to answer these questions? The only people I'd told were my parents, and I'd only told them because I was out of options as to who to confide in. You see, Caterina, unlike Cat, is _really_ narrow minded. I mean, I love her for all her flaws, but that' definitely her worst flaw.

"You're sick," she said, glaring at me, "you need help." With that, Caterina opened the door to the closet, plastered a big smile on her face, and skipped off to class. See, this is why Caterina and I drifted apart as friends and ended up more like two people allied merely because they were sharing the same secret.

Caterina would be Cat. I would be Jade. Cat and Jade would be the strange best friends they've always been. But I knew that Caterina and Jadelyn would never be friends ever again.

Needless to say, my in-class essay was the pits. I spent all day feeling terrible. See, this is why I never told Caterina that I liked girls. She was one of the biggest homophobes I'd ever met. That was another reason that she didn't like Robbie – she was pretty sure he was too effeminate to be straight. I mean, he is totally in love with her, so chances are he's bi, but I would never tell Caterina that. She judges too quickly for her own good.

I sat in the back of Sikowitz's classroom with Caterina. She was Cat and I was Jade, and we played our parts perfectly. When Sikowitz called us up to do an improv, she squealed and hugged me. I became lost in the focus of the character. I had to keep up Jade's wall. I couldn't let anyone see how awful I felt. If Jade came crumbling down, begging for Cat to still be her friend, no one would have any clue what was going on, and then after a minute they'd realize our deceit. It wasn't worth it. So I played Jade today. I was everything that Jade was. I focused on her mannerisms, her voice, her man voice (which I'm really proud of – it's totally different that my own typical man voice) and her attitude towards Cat.

"Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December, and each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor…" I spoke in my man voice, as Cat and Beck mimed the scene, with Cat as the raven and Beck as Edgar Allen Poe, or whoever Poe was pretending to be. I loved this poetic interpretation unit we were doing. Well, Jade thought it was stupid, but Jadelyn loved it. I mean, who would have even _considered_ acting out _The Raven_? It was ingenious.

Class came to its conclusion, and we all left for lunch. In the hall, a rough hand grabbed me and dragged me back into Sikowitz's classroom. Just what I needed. Based on the silence in the room, I guessed that Sikowitz was no longer in the room. Also, the guy who grabbed me and dragged me in here was probably waiting for me to turn around and acknowledge him. I turned to look at the boy.

"Eli?" I had barely said two words to this kid all year unless we were in character. Why was he forcing me to talk to him now? Oh shoot, he better not have a crush on me. I just could not deal with that.

"So you got my note?" He asked. Oh. My. God. And the worst part was, I'd almost forgotten about the note, what with Caterina and all that drama this morning. Eli? Really?

"How the hell did you find out?" I asked him. He didn't need to be told what I was talking about. He laughed.

"You tried to give me that necklace when we were little, remember?" Holy shit. This was Eli Small? No way. No freaking way.

"I haven't seen you since we were eight," I murmured. I had forgotten all about him until this moment, to be quite honest. He had brutally rejected me with some crap about cooties and he got all his friends to pick on me until he moved upstate.

"It's been a while, huh?" He asked.

"No kidding. I didn't even recognize you." Seriously, how did he recognize me? I looked completely different, and I mostly changed my name. We were eight, there was no way he'd remember anything about me.

"I was working in Principal Helen's office, you know, doing some filing. I needed some extra cash, and so I got a job. Well, I found a folder marked with 'Jadelyn Amanda West.' It's not a common name, so I remembered the name. And then when no one was looking, I did some digging and discovered who you were. You covered your tracks pretty well, I might add." He seemed pretty proud of himself.

"Dumb stalker," I muttered, turning to leave.

"No wait!" He said, and I turned around, "I can help you with the whole Tori thing. If you want."

"Thanks, but I don't need your help." I started to leave again.

"I'm here to talk, if you want. If I were in your situation, I know I'd want someone on the outside to talk to. Lemme know, okay?" He seemed to genuinely care. I guess the fear of cooties wore off. I found myself giving him a small smile.

"Yeah," I said, in spite of myself, "I'd like that."

It wasn't until I said it that I realized that I really did need a friend. Not as Jade, not as Caterina's co-conspirator. A genuine friend. And I might just have that.

**A/N: Please don't kill me! I wanted to write something different and challenge myself as a writer. I'm so sorry it was at the expense of Cat! I'll update when I can, and I hope it'll be soon! I love you all, please don't leave me! (:P) **

**P.S. And yeah, this chapter was named after a Paula Abdul song, in case you were wondering.**


	9. Getting Ready

**A/N: Okay, so I know a lot of you weren't thrilled with my characterization of Caterina/Cat. I am sorry. I have some idea of the direction I want to take this story in, and then is just sort of evolves by itself. I feel dumb to say I don't have much control over what's happening in the story, but I guess you'd understand if you're a writer. (How do you guys feel about a possible romance-type-thing between Jade and Eli? Please review and let me know. I have an idea of…something.)**

**Anyway, to make it up to you, I created this short fluff chapter of Jade being Jadelyn, or Jadelyn being Jadelyn. **

Finally it was Saturday. Funny thing is I don't really want to be Jade today. I'd found it so exhausting recently. I could always go to my grandma's and play Monopoly for a few hours. That's what I normally did as Jadelyn. But then I realized that I had other options.

I dialed the number recently given to me, and waited for him to pick up.

"Jade? Or Jadelyn?" Came Eli's answer.

"Jadelyn," I responded. I was surprised at how happy my voice came out. I guess I wasn't really used to having a real friend yet. "Do you wanna do something today? Hang out? Go to the mall? I'd really like to take you up on your offer to talk."

"Well, if we're going to talk, it can't be around here. Do you want me to pick you up? We could go to Lacy Park in San Marino. It's really small. I mean, it's a bit of a drive, but…"

"That sounds great! See you in an hour?" I guess I really did want a friend. We hung up, and then I had to decide what to wear. See, my grandma never really cared that I that I dressed as Jade when we hung out. She was well aware of the secret (because she comes to all my performances and sees my crazy hair and piercing) and encouraged it. She thought my dad was a total pain for not liking it. But I didn't want Eli to see me as Jade. I wanted him to see Jadelyn.

Unfortunately, the only thing of Jadelyn's in my closet was that puffy green dress from six years ago. There was no way it still fit, and it was way too dressy for a park.

"Mom?" I called from my room, "can I borrow some of your clothes?" My mom came into my room pretty quickly after I said that.

"Jadelyn," she began cautiously, "why do you need to borrow my clothes?"

"Do you remember Eli Small?" I saw a bright smile light up her face.

"Oh my gosh. He was your first crush. Oh, Jadelyn, honey, you were so cute!" She paused for a second, "Why?"

"He kind of goes to HA with me, and he kind of figured out my secret. Also I think we might become friends and we're going to this park in San Marino and I really don't want to show up as Jade because I don't actually have any real friends and I don't want him to think I'm like Jade because I'm not and I really haven't had a friend you know like a real friend in so long and…." I took a breath, realizing that I was rambling.

"Honey, relax. I'm sure I have something appropriate for a trip to the park. Come into my room and we'll look." My mom smiled at me. We went into her room.

I always liked my mom's room. It had pale green walls and rust-colored sheets on the bed. Over the bed was this really big painting of a beach somewhere. It was such a peaceful room. And I _loved_ her closet. It was organized by color, even the shoes that lined the bottom. There was a bureau in the center, with the more casual clothes, a mirror, and tons of jewelry for any occasion.

I ended up wearing light blue jeans, black ballet flats, and a soft, pale blue, long-sleeved t-shirt. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail, and wore minimal makeup. I had tiny gold posts in my ears. I paired it all with my mom's purple Northface jacket.

My PearPhone beeped.

_Hey, I'm in your driveway. Cool shutters._

I laughed. The shutters on my house are blue, and the contrast interestingly from the finished-wood shingles of the house.

I headed outside, winking at my awestruck dad on my way out.

I was (finally) taking my first steps (in public) as Jadelyn Amanda West after six years. I didn't realize until I closed the door how much I missed being me.

It's funny how that kept happening lately.


	10. Walking in Memphis, or San Marino

**A/N: Firstoff, disclaimer - Romance TYPE THING that is a THEORY, guys! :) Don't get your panties in a twist! I'm going ahead with my theory. And I don't own Victorious, I don't know if I need to reiterate that or not. **

**Also, you guys are incredible. I had more readers with my last update than EVER BEFORE! I love you guys so much! I know there isn't much Jori in this story and I'm kinda dragging it out forever, but I'm actually having a lot of fun writing this and I think I'm avoiding the Jori because I don't want this to end. As people in the _Bones_ fandom like to say, "Everything happens eventually." **

Eli looked a bit taken aback when I got into the car. "Well okay then," he said, starting the car. We drove in almost silence the entire way there, talking only about radio stations. It was so nice to be able to listen to my music openly, I must say. You could tell that Eli was…adjusting to who I was after I made a weird noise and cringed at the dirty lyrics in "Cherrybomb," one of Jade's favorite songs. He was clearly surprised at my face. I laughed. I felt free.

We got to the park. It was small, which I had excpected. I hadn't been to a park in years. I smiled. I hopped out of the car and skipped straight to the center. I flung my arms out and twirled – very _Sound of Music_, if I might add. Eli laughed and shook his head. He grabbed my hand and led me to a bench.

He dropped my hand as we got ot the bench. I missed the sensation. Which was weird.

"So," he said, "what do you want to talk about?" Huh. I hadn't really thought about it. I'd never had a conversation as Jadelyn with someone who wasn't Caterina or related to me. Well, not in a really long time, anyway.

"I don't know," was my reply. It was lame, I'll admit, but it was the truth.

"Well, I know most of the basics, so why don't you tell me about Cat, and why you're here with me instead of hanging out with her. Which I'm assuming is what you do. Unless someone else knows."

"Caterina," I corrected, "thinks I'm….sick. Dirty. Pathetic. I haven't been able to talk to her since Thursday. She hates me."

"Why?" He seemed genuinely curious.

"Because," I said, leaning in, "I'm…I'm a bisexual, all right?"

"Yeah, I kinda figured," Eli pressed, "but why does Cat…Caterina think that makes you sick? She's the one who's always going on about everyone needing love and all that."

"No. Cat goes around saying that. Caterina is about as prejudiced as it gets." I sighed, and leaned my head against his shoulder. He placed his hand on my arm to comfort me. I looked up, and I realized how close I was to him. I lifted my chin up, leaning towards him, dying for my lips to meet his, to get that comfort.

And then I was face flat on the bench.

"Ow!" I said, looking up at a now-standing Eli.

"Don't you dare," He told me.

"Don't I dare what?"

"Try and kiss me," He said. He was smirking. I wanted him to stop. He was acting like Jade. Wow. I didn't like Jade, I found her irritating. And I'm just now figuring it out. Huh. Interesting.

"Why not? I'm completely over Beck – you _aren't_ a rebound. I like you!" I didn't really know if I liked him, to be honest, but I did like being with him, and he was so sweet…

"No you don't. You like Tori. We've been over this, more or less." Oh. I'd forgotten about Tori. Instantly I felt this pang of guilt. But I really did want to be with Eli. I think. I wasn't sure who I wanted. Well, that wasn't good.

"I…I…" I was at a loss for words. I looked up at him hopelessly. He laughed and sat down.

"Jade, have you ever seen a show called _Hope Springs?_" I wanted to correct him on my name, but I figured now probably wasn't the time.

"No," I responded. I'd never heard of this show. And I watch a lot of shows. I have to, because I'm keeping up with the shows I like, and then the shows Jade likes.

"It was this British show. My sister Bea is obsessed with the BBC," he explained. I wondered why he was bringing it up. "It's really dumb – got cancelled after only one season," Eli continued, "Anyway, the frizzy-haired lady fell in love with this cop, right, or at least she thought she did. And he fell for her too, or so he thought. What they realized was that the only real reason they were kissing was because they were both unhappy in their relationships and had never had any camaraderie with the opposite gender, so they didn't know how to be friends."

"Oh. Um, okay." Where was he going with this?

"You think you like me because you've never had a real friendship with a guy as Jadelyn, right?" Sad thing is that he was probably right.

I sighed, and leaned my head back against his shoulder.

"I'm sorry," I told him.

"Don't sweat it." Eli was still smirking. Ugh. "So we never did discuss what exactly you wanted to talk about," he continued.

"Well, I didn't want to talk about anything," I admitted, "not really. What I wanted was to hang out with someone, you know, be me. And you had offered, so I just figured 'why not?'"

"That's cool too," he responded, "at any rate, I have some questions for you."

"Oh really?" I challenged, a smile back on my face. I picked my head up from his shoulder and turned to face him.

"Why did you become Jade?" was Eli's first question.

"Because I could," I giggled, "and because it was a challenge."

"Well why haven't you given it up? You're _clearly_ a lot happier as…yourself. What do I even call you?" He countered.

"Call me whatever you like, although I'd rather it not be Jade. I haven't given it up, I guess, because at this point I'm too deep into the character. Also, Caterina would probably kill me. She hates me enough as it is. Plus, some of it is really fun. I love the little things about her. Her obsession with scissors, her man voice, the hair extensions….I love the way that she can make a person quake in their boots from just a single look. I could never do that. She's also a lot more confident than I am." I stopped then, realizing that I was rambling.

"Well, if you're Jade, then all the things you love about her are things you love about you, aren't they?" Eli asked, "What about Lyn? Too girly? I feel so weird calling you Jadelyn after all this time."

"Try Jay. I mean, it sound edgier. That way if you slip up and call me that at school, no one will notice that much," I responded. I wanted to dodge the earlier question, but he was being so nice, and I didn't want to be rude, so I continued, "Jade isn't me. Jade is a character that I play. Offstage I'm still this shy little girl. I'm terrified of people judging me. I'm awkward in my skin. Jade isn't. So I pretend to be Jade, pretend to be confident, but I'm not. Not really."

"I don't really know if that makes sense or not," he said.

Well, in order to avoid explaining it again, I looked at my watch. We were at least an hour away from my house, and it was already four o'clock. We drove home, talking about music again. I showed him the oldies stations that I listen to, and he really impressed me with his knowledge of classic rock.

We got to my house, and I hopped out of the car with a smile.

"See ya tomorrow, Jay!" Eli called.

I turned and waved before answering, "I'm looking forward to it!"

**A/N: Ugh! This took forever to write! I'm so sorry! I hope you guys like Jadelyn, I really do! I know she isn't Jade, but she isn't supposed to be. Just, stay with me, okay?**

**P.S. if you haven't seen _Hope Springs, _it's actually really good. I know Eli said it was lame, but that was because it's a rather girly show. Alex Kingston is "the frizzy-haired" one. I love her. You should too.**


	11. Fix You

**A/N: So, my friend made me a playlist of really good songs, and it made me want to write some more. I'm going to be really honest – I'm not particularly good at writing romance. I'm excellent at breakups and rejection. Even written a couple kidnappings. However, romance befuddles me. That's why there hasn't been much Jori in this story yet. So, you have been warned.**

I slammed my locker door shut. A pair of yellow scissors fell to my feet. I'd have to glue it back later. I was the pits at art, but Beck made decorating my locker fun. That's around when my whole scissor obsession started. I know some kids around here whisper that I cut myself, and that's why I love scissors, but it is so not true. Jade loves scissors because of the power that's in them. There's a certain…potential to each pair. You can do a lot of good with scissors, and a lot of bad. Each pair has a different story. I worked really hard developing that trait. Like I've said, it's one of my favorite traits about Jade.

I smiled and shoved the yellow-handled metal deathtraps into my bag along with my Trig textbook.

Small hand wrapped themselves around my eyes. Shoot. I had to be Jade. Back in character, Jadelyn, back in character.

"Cat. Off!" I yelled in the Jade-iest voice I could muster. I'd spent so much time this weekend as Jadelyn that it was a lot harder than I expected to slip into Jade's vindictive and abrasive personality.

"Phooey," I heard Cat say, "Jade, can we talk?" Her voice was small and quiet and cute. Caterina was trying really hard to stay in character too, I could tell. Her voice always got really quiet when she was struggling with her character.

"Hold out your wrist," I responded, monotonously. She complied, and I dragged her into the janitor's closet. Yuck. The janitor got a new bottle of bleach. Or twenty in bulk, I couldn't really tell – the smell was too strong. I hated it in here. "What's up?" I asked, leaning against the door. She didn't want to be in here. She looked so uncomfortable. "I'm not going to grab you and shove my tongue down your throat, if that's what you're worried about," I informed her.

"I can't be your friend anymore," she told me. Wait…

"I thought that was already established?" I questioned.

"No, not me as Caterina. Obviously I would never be friends with such a disgusting, sick person as you," she retorted, rolling her eyes. She sounded like she was explaining basic equations to sixth graders – putting me down and making me feel stupid. "Cat is not going to be Jade's friend anymore. I'm sorry, but that is a part that I refuse to play. No part of me wants to be friends with a dyke like you." She pushed past me and out of the door.

I didn't know how to react. I'd lost half of my best friend when I lost Caterina, but now I'd lost Cat, too. I'd never been called a dyke before. I'd never been treated like that before. My throat closed up. My nose started to tingle. My eyes grew damp with impending tears. I slid onto the ground and wrapped my arms around my knees.

Jade West would skip class. That's what she would do. She wouldn't care that the only other person from whom she could get notes is her ex-boyfriend. She wouldn't care about anything. I was really glad about that part of her personality, because now I could sit and cry and be Jadelyn and not worry.

Tears came flooding out. Why was I like this? Why did I have to love Tori? It obviously was sick. It wasn't good. I was an awful person. If my grandpa found out, he would slap me with a Bible. There was no way I was ever going to be me and be accepted. I would have to play Jade for my entire life. I hated myself. I've never felt worse. My stomach twisted in knots. I was crying mostly silently, with barely audible whimpers escaping from my mouth. This was the most Jadelyn that Hollywood Arts would ever see. I was going to make sure of that. I would never be me, I would never let anyone treat me this badly.

I don't know how long I sat like that, hating myself, but eventually the door opened. Hands grasped my shoulders and pulled me towards a warm body. I wrapped my arms around the body. It was male.

My first reaction was that it was Beck. I couldn't see through the tears. I wanted it to be Beck instead of some stranger. At least Beck knew I was straight. He'd believe whatever lie I improvved about why I was crying.

Wait. That was why Eli didn't want to kiss me. It was because he thought I was sick too, wasn't it. I knew it. I felt disgusting. I hated myself.

"Shhhh," Eli's voice murmured into my hair, "It'll be alright, Jay, whatever it is. It'll work out. Don't cry, please. It's kind of freaking me out." I laughed a little and looked up at him. Why was he here? Didn't he think I was sick, too?

I didn't care. In that moment, he was there. I gripped him tighter and sobbed harder.

Again, I don't know how long I stayed like that. Eli just let me cry. The bell rang for class.

"Okay, girlie, you have to get up now," He said to me softly, pulling me up. I wiped the tears from my eyes and gave him a proper look. In his eyes was kindness, the kind I'd never seen in Caterina. He was my friend. I had to remind myself that. He didn't care about who I was. I needed to end my pity party.

"Oh God," I chuckled, "I must look like absolute crap." Eli laughed.

"I thought they made waterproof mascara," He wondered, staring a little ways under my eyes, at cheeks that were probably streaked with black.

"The liquid eyeliner isn't waterproof," I muttered, still working past my choked-up voice.

"Well, let's get you cleaned up," He told me.

"That's dumb. You can't go into the girl's bathroom." I rolled my eyes and smiled at him. He opened the door and took me to an oh-so-familiar locker with an oh-so-familiar skinny brunette.

"Tori, I need you to help get Jay – Jade – cleaned up," Eli told her. She looked really confused, but she agreed. She reached for my hand, but stopped. I was Jade after all. She put a hand on my shoulder and led me to the bathroom. Her hand felt warm. It felt comfortable. Not the safety-comfortable that I was talking about with Ryder. This was comfortable in a way that was infinitely comforting. I felt bad when she took her hand off my shoulder. She wet some paper towels and reached up to wipe my face.

She paused, unsure if she should help me or not. I gave a weak nod, and she wiped off my makeup. It was a slow process – I used a lot of eyeliner. Afterwards, she gave me her makeup bag to root through. We were completely different colorings, so I was going to have to use brown eyeliner. Shoot. It wasn't liquid, either, and I ended up poking my eye with the pencil.

"Dammit!" I cried. It was the first thing I'd said since Eli helped me out of the janitor's closet. Real pleasant, Jadelyn. On the upside, it was totally in character.

"Here, let me," Tori offered, patting the sink. I hopped up and bent towards her. She dragged the pencil across my eyes with one hand. The other hand rested on my knee for her balance. I liked the feeling. "Open," she said, ready to help me with my bottom lids. I opened my eyes and there she was. She was right in my face. I stared into her eyes as she concentrated less than a millimeter below mine. She finished, and met mine. She gave me a warm smile before backing up. I hopped down.

I grabbed onto her hand as I walked to class. I really needed something to hold onto. She didn't seem to mind. We walked into Sikowitz's classroom like that. Caterina narrowed her eyes at me from Tori's usual seat, but I had already thrown my pity party. I led Tori to the seat next to me and sat down.

I was done hating myself. Right now I was Jade West, who just happened to be sitting next to Tori Vega and no longer friends with Cat. Right now I focused on being Jade West, because Jade West was ready for anything.


	12. The Cell Block Tango

**A/N: Reiterating that I really don't own Victorious, or any of the characters. Also, this is now officially AU, courtesy of my breaking up the Cade friendship, even thought it has always technically was AU, because of the whole "Jade and Cat aren't really Jade and Cat" thing. Also, please don't stop reading this! I really love this story and I love that you guys are reading it and it makes me so insanely happy and I'm just going to shut up and get to the story now.**

Well, that day pretty much went like any other normal day, except that Caterina ate lunch with everybody else and I had my own personal table. The brown eyeliner made my peripheral vision improve significantly, and out of the corner of my eye I watched them laugh. I watched them have fun, my best friends, abandoning me. Because, I was sure, Cat had cried over how I had abandoned her.

I wondered what Tori thought of this whole situation. I mean, she saw me in tears. How much did she believe Cat's story? How much did she suspect innocent little Cat?

This was all Beck's fault. If he had never broken up with me, none of this would have ever happened. I could have gone on admiring Tori from a distance. I could have graduated with the hottest boy in school on my arm. I could have gone off to college and never have had to deal with any one of these people ever again. I could have forgotten about my feelings for Tori. Perhaps I would have met a nice girl or boy at college who would catch my fancy. I could have lived an amazing life out of high school. I would never have had to deal with this crumbling lie while my coconspirator was conspiring against me. I hated Beck in that moment, I really did.

I imagine Beck will become a brilliant television actor. He has the looks to be the next Brad Pitt, if only he didn't have the emotional depth of Kristen Stewart. So he would do television, probably some daytime soap. I imagine that, in a perfect world, he had never broken up with me, at least not until after graduation. Caterina and I would have revealed our secret to the world at graduation, or maybe sometime during senior year. We would have been able to be best friends again. Meanwhile, I would be off becoming a brilliant star of stage and screen – well, mostly stage. I imagined I'd be the perfect Elphaba in the Broadway revival of _Wicked_ (because face it, _Wicked's _going to finish its run eventually and need a revival). Once again blonde, Caterina would make a brilliant Galinda – we all know she can be overly perky and bubbly. We'd be sitting next to each other at the Tony Awards, clutching our hands together as the actors onstage announced the awards. I would have a dress that was probably a pale pink. It would be floorlength, flowy, probably with some form of a sweetheart neckline and a small amount of sparkles or small gemstones lining the collar. Caterina's would be respectfully knee-length, straight-cut, strapless, hugging her curves, and ice blue. Whether we won or not wouldn't really matter – the point was we had enough chops to make it there in the first place. People knew who we were now, and we'd gotten everything we'd ever dreamed. All because Beck, the newest star on _Days of Our Lives_, had never broken up with me and caused this entire catastrophic nightmare that was surrounding my very real life.

I wandered through my daydreams for a while. Then I finished my food and I walked away from my friends, or at least, my position spying on them. I walked through the halls of my school. The walls that once looked inviting and comforting, a place where I could master my craft, now looked like they were mocking on me, telling me that I'd brought it on myself.

I was thanking God when the bell rang for next period. I had signed up for a lyrical dance class this semester. I loved it. I was changing into my black leotard and leggings when I noticed a note in my bag. I recognized the handwriting immediately as Sikowitz's. It must have fallen out of my folder. I had forgotten that he had given it to me. After everything that happened today, I hadn't found the motivation to read it.

_Come to my classroom after school. _

It was a little weird, but stapled to the note was a basic rubric that he gave to all his students when he had "special opportunities" for them. It was the rubric on how to write your resume. I smiled. I hadn't gotten one of these in a while. The last time any of us had was when Tori got the chance to audition for the movie about that messed up teenager and that whole Gorilla Club debacle had happened.

Well, an hour of dance and an hour of Trig later, I was standing in Sikowitz's classroom. Well, I was leaning against the wall, waiting for him to finish his coconut juice and acknowledge my presence. He swallowed his last gulp and turned to me.

"So you want to know what your special project is?" He asked, with that irritating, nutty gleam in his eye.

"Yes!" I cried. I was so giddy with anticipation that Jadelyn was nearly leaping out of Jade's skin.

"How would you like to be at the best performing arts college in California?" He asked me. I was really confused.

"Sikowitz, I'm a junior," I explained to him. I still had at least six months before I had to start applying for the early acceptance colleges.

"Oh, no, not really! That's what the movie's about! But the problem is, your character got into the college through really unconventional means, and then starts falling in love with her dance professor. And by unconventional, I me scandalous!" He says, shimmying with the last word. I laugh. This sounds so cool.

"What's it called?" I asked, a huge smile on my face. Yep. I am totally Jadelyn now. But it's okay, Sikowitz can just think that Jade is excited for something. Jade is just as driven as I am.

"_Dancing in the Dark_. Auditions are two weeks from tomorrow, so if you want the part, you have to fill out your resume by tomorrow, understood?" He informed me.

"Crystal clear!" I giggled. I was so stoked. Sikowitz normally thought I was too scary for the romantic heroine-type character. I practically skipped out of the classroom once he handed me the script.

Things were definitely looking up for one Miss Jadelyn Amanda West.

And then of course everything just had to go and fall to crap.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

Right before my eyes, there was Eli.

And he was kissing her.

The love of my life.

Tori Vega.

Well, I was in such a state of shock, I completely blacked out. It wasn't until later, when I realized that my knuckles were angrily red, that I even knew I'd punched him.

He had it coming.

He had it coming.

He had been planning it all along.

I didn't hurt him (not really badly, anyway),

But if I'd hurt him,

How could you tell me that I was wrong?

**A/N: If you've never seen Chicago, you probably don't get that last bit. Just look up "The Cell Block Tango." Let me know what you guys think! I love hearing your thoughts and input! **


	13. Turning Tables

**A/N: So, I pretty much have no clue where I'm going with this story. Bear with me on this one. I'm just making it up as I go along. Also, reviews are really fun to read. And yes, that is completely, 100%, a shameless plug to get you guys to review. Also, Sloth13, you are just about the coolest person ever and I love reading your reviews! They make me so happy! I love you all!**

I was going to kill him. I mean, I'd pretty much tried. He had a black eye the next day, and it looked like I may have either broken or bruised his nose too, because the bridge of it was all purple. He knew I liked Tori. God, he knew almost everything about me at this point. Not that there really is much about me. I've spent so much time developing Jade that I haven't really developed Jadelyn.

My phone vibrated. Eli. I sent it to voicemail. I had been doing the exact same thing the entire week. I'd pushed Tori away too. I don't think she knew why as much, though.

I vaguely remember the rest of that week. I was in this huge, angry huff.

I tried to talk to my mom, but she just didn't get it. Well, she did, but her ideas for how to solve the issue sounded like something out of fifth grade Guidance class. I love her, but she hasn't been to high school in thirty years, and she also isn't bisexual. She has no idea how to deal with my situation.

So I'm going to skip past the angry week in my story, and cut to where I'm throwing a pity party for myself on the couch. I was contemplating that Monday of Hell. Cat abandoned me, and my one true friend made out with the girl that he knew I had a crush on. On the upside, I had an audition that I was procrastinating on preparing for, and I currently had a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream in my hand. My mom had been so nice to me – she even went and bought me this big, pink, Disney princess spoon to cheer me up.

Well, I chose not to watch _Practical Magic_ again after what happened last time. I ended up watching some lame episode of some lame soap opera. I wasn't even sure what I was watch. The old lady was trying to convince her granddaughter to hide drugs in her boyfriend's backpack because the old lady had some age old vendetta against the boyfriend's grandfather. I wasn't really paying that much attention.

Liberty, equality, and fraternity. Those were the main goals of the National Assembly during the time of the French Revolution. Well, Kudos to them. I certainly don't have any of that. I was trying so hard to focus on my history reading (although watching soap operas while doing so probably wasn't the most brilliant idea in the book), but then I started relating it to my life. Why? God only knows. First _Sense and Sensibility_, now my World History textbook? I'm losing my mind.

I didn't have any of that which the National Assembly strived for. I had no liberty. I was stuck in this body of Jade West. I was trapped. And equality? Yeah, because I'm totally treated equal no matter which person I'm portraying, Jade or Jadelyn. (That was sarcasm, I hope you got that.) Fraternity? Well, I took Latin, but it didn't take a Latin scholar to know that that meant brotherhood. You could get that much just from watching reruns of _Greek_. Brotherhood. Even with the newly feministic world that we live in, it still had meaning. It was just more siblingry now, rather than brotherhood. I didn't have that either. I had no friends. My best friend was my mom. As much as I love her, that's kind of lame.

Anyway, I had spent so much time wallowing in my misery, that, if it wasn't for Sikowitz and his audition, I probably would have forgotten about my audition. Good thing was, the wallowing in misery did help the emotional depth of the character for the brief portion of the scene I was working on. Actually, the wallowing in self pity on my couch is getting kind of boring. Let's jump to the next day, the Tuesday exactly one week from my audition, when I was practicing with Sikowitz during my free period.

"What if everyone finds out?" I asked.

"They won't. And if they do, what's the worst that could happen?" Sikowitz replied.

"Well, for one, I could get kicked out of school and my dreams and everything I've worked for will be completely over."

"No one will find out. I'll help you, I promise." Sikowitz was trying to mimic comfort in his voice, but the hobo clothes ruined it.

"How? How can you promise such a thing? And why would you?" I was nearly crying now.

"I can hide all of this from Dr. Pond, I really can. I can burn it. She'll be suspicious, sure, but she won't know to look at me for where the evidence went. And you won't know a thing, because I won't tell you where I'm going to destroy the papers." He told me.

"But _why_? Why would you do this for me?" I begged. I heard the door to the room open and close. I kept my gaze locked with Sikowitz, waiting for his response.

"Please don't make me say it out loud." He responded, barely above a whisper.

"So I'm not making up these feelings, I'm not the only one who feels what we have between us." It wasn't a question.

"If anyone ever finds out…"

"They won't," I cried softly, breaking into a grin. I took a few steps forward closer to him, before continuing, "you and me, here and now, our feelings for each other, that's all that matters."

"How do I know you aren't only saying this so that I'll keep your secret?" He asked, suddenly changing his tone.

"Because if you try to get in my pants, I'll kill you," I laughed, softly, "and because you can't fake _this_." I stopped. The script says that I'm supposed to kiss him, but obviously that sure as heck isn't happening with Sikowitz.

I finally looked up and realized that Tori was watching me, Eli by her side. I did not want to deal with this right now. I really didn't.

"Oh! You can just feel the awkward in the air! Have fun, kids! Great job, Jade!" Sikowitz cried, skipping out of the classroom. Great. Now I had to deal with these two.

"What do you want Vega, Small?" I asked, addressing each with a snide tone and a glare in turn.

"I wanna talk, Jay," Eli said. I gave him a disparaging look. Ugh, why did I have to give him permission to call me that? Tori looked a bit taken aback by it, too.

"You two? Really? Well, never woulda guessed that," She said.

"No, not like that!" Eli rolled his eyes as a frustrated looked passed over his face.

"Why were you kissing her?" I asked him.

"I kissed her to get a reaction out of you! It's no fun watching hot, lesbian drama unfold slower than my grandma can return Christmas presents!" He explained, "By the way, either of you want a pink, wool scarf with flowers all over it?"

"No…wait what?" Now Tori was the one confused. Good. She deserved it.

"Why did you kiss him?" I asked, ignoring Eli's comment. We were friends, I think, and if he _was_ telling the truth, he could get away with joking like that. At least in my book - I dunno about anyone else's. At any rate, Tori apparently saw my question as some sort of offensive accusation.

"Well, I was asking about you, about why you were crying and stuff, and he didn't really want to answer, and then I just got up in his face, and then he kissed me. And I didn't know what to do, so I kissed him back! I didn't know you two had something _going on_! Last I checked, you were sucking face with Ryder!" She nearly yelled.

"Eli and I don't have anything _going on_, Vega," I informed her. Well, that explained why Eli kissed her. He was a good friend after all.

"Okay, now – lesbian WHAT?" She turned to Eli to ask the question.

"It's you, Tori, okay?" I explained, "It's been you since the showcase, since the coffee, since the Rottweiler, since Andre's blowout at Keenan Thompson's, since everything."

"Jade, what are you saying?" She looked so uncomfortable. I guessed in all of my doting on this girl I'd never taken into account how straight she was, or how much she shared Caterina's opinions. Well, time to change the subject. I sat down.

"I'm saying that I sure as hell am not Jade Agatha West."

**A/N: I'm sorry this is such a crappy chapter! I can never pick up the pace in time, and they keep ending really badly! It'll get better soon, I promise, I think! (Also, review with ideas! I like ideas!)**


	14. Learn My Lesson

**A/N: I really don't mind if you guys criticize me in the reviews, as long as it's polite. So big shout-out to Parkitcharlie for actually giving me an idea! I am incorporating it into the chapter. Sorta. And I have to give the shout-out because otherwise it would probably be plagiarism, or something along those lines. And hey – I got so many reviews last chapter that I just had this huge smile on my face all through Theology class, after I checked them. So, you guys rock.**

"What?" Tori was really confused now. Well, I don't know if I successfully navigated the subject away from my big crush on her that Eli just _had_ to point out, but I definitely bought myself some stalling time.

"My name is Jadelyn Amanda West," I began, "and I am…I am not Jade. I am nothing like her."

"I don't understand," Tori confessed.

"I like wearing bright colors and poofy dresses and this eyebrow piercing isn't real. I'm terrified that I'm going to be stabbed with the scissors that seem to constantly be falling off my locker. I like the Backstreet Boys and lame pop music. I've had "Call Me Maybe" stuck in my head for over a week. I also love classic rock, but I hate the punk and screamo music I've forced myself to listen to. I LOVE _Titanic_, my favorite movie ever is _Practical Magic_, and _Law and Order: SVU_ scares the living daylights out of me." I explained. She still didn't seem like she was getting it. "It was a dumb acting exercise I did in seventh grade that I just kept up until I was in too deep to give it up." Oh, now see, there was the spark of understanding behind her eyes.

"Well, that explains your mom," Tori muttered.

"Excuse me?" I asked. I mean, seriously, that was just uncalled for.

"Well, she was all as sweet as sugar until she saw me and then she yelled at you," she explained.

"Oh," I'd almost forgotten about that.

"I guess Jadelyn's the bisexual one, then?" She asked. See, I knew that she wouldn't forget about that! I hate my mom for spilling the beans like that. I looked at Eli, and he nodded encouragingly.

"Yeah," I said. I didn't meet her eyes.

"And Jadelyn – you – like me?" She asked, this time a little more hesitant to get the information.

"Yeah," I repeated, still not meeting her eyes. She had really cute brown boots, I'd give her that much.

I glanced up as she retreated out of the classroom. Well, this wasn't good.

So, now I'm going to skip the rest of the day, because it was all just more avoiding Caterina and trying to find Tori and general talking with Eli – who, by the way, was really excited that I'd come clean to Tori. Seriously, in less than a month I'd told two people my biggest secret and my entire life had fallen to shambles.

Once a month, I go to this Poetry Slam thing at a coffee shop in….well, not a bad part of LA, but it certainly wasn't private-school-appropriate. Let's call it middle class. No one from HA would ever go there. The only reason I went was because my mom had a part time job there and Freshman year she thought it would be something I'd be interested in. I loved it, to be honest. I loved writing words that didn't really have to make sense to anyone but me. I had two poems prepared. The first was girly and sappy. The second was angry. I took one last glance the first and headed up to the mic when my name was called. "I have another poem ready if this one sucks. It's called 'Faster,'" I said, before beginning.

"You're falling fast – I'm falling faster

Toward this imminent disaster

I don't know what to think

I don't understand – I can't master

You're some angel, and I can't blink.

What good is now, when all is lost

You're running away, but what's the cost?

Everything is broken now

Through the sea of unknown I'm tossed.

Somebody please tell me _how!_

Do you know what I'm feeling?

Probably not – now my head is reeling.

You don't like me, I'm sure that's true

But I'll be on the ground with a ring kneeling

I'll be doing it for you.

You're falling fast – I'm falling faster

Toward impending doom – I've asked her

How she feels and I know she says the truth

She doesn't feel the same way, she never will

So I'm going to sit back in that booth

And think about the dreams she killed."

I stopped, and looked around the room. There was a slight hesitation before everyone in the shop applauded. I went back to my seat, and waited until I got the chance to read my next poem.

Well, let me just tell you, there was this absolutely brilliant guy yelling about how his daughter wanted to work for the government. I mean, just because I'm not Jade doesn't mean I can't appreciate an anarchist piece. I don't necessarily believe the same thing, but it was really well-written. I was clapping like mad, and then they called my name again. I stood up. I almost wished I had my paper with me, but this was a Poetry Slam – you memorized it.

'She is everything I want

She all that I can't stand

All I really know

Is I want you to understand

Why is that so hard to see?

Why are you so above me?

In your perfect little world, with those perfect little eyes

You see everything one way

You judge everything and despise

Am I sick?

Am I nothing?

Am I worthless because of you?

Because of what you think?

No, I'm not, I only am to you.

So shut up and let me be

I want her with me

You can't tell me differently

You're nothing

And I am so glad that I finally see

It."

As I finished, I realized that I had been screaming my words. Everyone applauded immediately. I walked back to my table and smiled. I sat down. A body slid into the chair across from me.

"Hey," Caterina said, looking at me.

"What do you want? I thought you never wanted to associate with a dyke like me?" I accused.

"Well, I am under the impression that you told Tori and Eli about our little secret," She leveled. Shoot.

"How did you come to that conclusion?" I asked, keeping my voice calm.

"Well, little Miss Vega came to confide in me because she didn't know what to do about it all," She met my even voice and narrowed her eyes just slightly, making her small frame seem very intimidating. "She doesn't love you," Caterina told me, "She doesn't understand you. She thinks you're a _freak_."

"Tori would never judge me like that. She wouldn't care." I told Caterina, struggling to keep the evenness that my voice had known less than a minute ago. She smirked, got up, and walked away.

I looked at the table to find that she had left a red chord, strung with beads.

Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple.

**A/N: Can I reiterate that this is all in Jadelyn's point of view. So you're basically getting Tori's opinions third hand. Just keep that in mind.**


	15. Keep Breathing

**A/N: I love you all so much! I know what you're all thinking though, "Why isn't she at a conclusion yet?" Well, I have no idea. I'm dragging this out for far longer than I expected to. It'll get to a fun, happy, Jori conclusion eventually? (And, hey, who heard "Take a Hint" yet? Smiles all around?)**

I grabbed the necklace and went home. I kept up a brave face until I got back into my car. I cried silently. I was sick, and now the one person that I cared about agreed. I hated who I was. I hated everything about me. I hated Caterina. I hated Beck. I hated Eli. I hated Tori. She made me feel this way. Well, no, she didn't. Sally from camp did. But that's beside the point. No it isn't. I hated her too. I hated everybody.

I've noticed that I'm doing way too much wallowing in misery. Well, that would change. Somehow. I would find a way to get through this.

When I got home, I stalked up to my room and threw my bag on the floor.

I noticed the pair of yellow scissors sticking out of my bag. I picked them up, and folded them over in my hands. I sat there. I stared at them. I thought some really bad thoughts. But I wasn't Jade. It took some reminding, but I wasn't her. And even if I was, I wouldn't do that to myself. I placed the scissors back in my bag, and flopped onto my bed. I sighed.

The ceiling of my room is red. It's the only thing of Jadelyn's in this room. It's been red since I was a kid. I had this baby doll with a red shirt, and since then I decided that my favorite color was red. I mean, now it's green, but Red is still in Jade's color pallet. Bright green is not. I stared up at the red ceiling and remembered when everything in my life was easier.

Caterina used to think it was so cool that my ceiling was red. She wanted to die her hair that exact same shade. I guess that's what inspired the magenta when we took on our roles. She and I used to bounce on my bed as high as we could. But we couldn't get too high – the ceiling was lava!

I smiled to myself at the bittersweet memory and rolled over. I should probably get started on some homework. I looked at the bag beside my bed. I pulled out my Trig textbook. I opened to a clean sheet of notebook paper.

"Tom's old aunt sat on her cat and hollered," I muttered to myself, writing the basic rules of Trig at the top corner of my paper. God I hated Trig. I hated triangles in general. I muttered curses at each of the problems for over an hour. Then there was a knock at my door.

"Hey," she said, wandering shyly into my room.

"What are you doing here, Vega?" I asked her.

"Your mom let me in," She admitted, sitting down next to me, "We need to talk, right?"

"What gave you that idea? I kinda thought our talk was over the second you left Sikowitz's classroom."

"I thought you weren't anything like Jade?" Tori asked, her voice still quiet and awkward, "who are you, anyway?"

"I'm not," I informed her, "but that doesn't mean I can't be cynical and angry when I'm mad and upset. You can call me Jay, if you aren't comfortable with Jadelyn. That's what Eli does."

"Oh." We sat there in a really awkward, uncomfortable, half-silence. She was playing with her hands in her lap, and I continued cursing at my Trig homework. "You know," she told me, breaking the silence, "Whenever I get frustrated I just write 42 for every answer." Oh. My. God. I smiled huge. Awkward and uncomfortable was nothing on Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel, Helen Miren, Alan Rickman, and all their awesomeness.

"The answer to life, the universe, and everything?" I asked, hopeful. I saw her smile widen.

"Yeah," she said, grinning. She took the binder from my lap, set it on hers, and wrote a big '42' in the limited corner of the page that I hadn't used. She closed my binder and lightly tossed it near the bag that was still on the floor. "Now you're all done." You could feel the air in the room getting less tense.

But the moment was soon gone, and we had to face the real reason Tori was in my room.

"I'm not supposed to feel this way," I began, "I never was. Especially not with my relationship with Beck being what it was. But the relationship helped. I hid behind it, and I was safe within my character. My character didn't feel anything for you. She hates you, to be honest."

"Thanks?" Tori interrupted.

"No, what I mean is, Beck dumped me, and I had no idea how to be Jade anymore. And then Eli found out, or, apparently, he's known for a long time but he decided that two days after I broke up with Beck would be an excellent time to inform me that he knew who I was. And he also knew that I gave you that necklace – long story. Anyway, everything was just crashing down around me and when I saw Eli kiss you…" I paused, trying to remember the point that I was making, "I'm sorry. I never should have told you that I liked you and put you in that sort of position. I know it's uncomfortable, and I'm not asking for you to feel the same way. I'd never try to ask something like that of anyone…"I trailed off, unsure of where exactly I was going.

"You gave me the necklace?" Tori confirmed.

"Yes, but –"

"What?" She asked. Now I was confused.

"The pink one?" I pulled it out of my bag. "I thought you knew, and that's why you gave it back to Cat."

"No, Cat said Ryder gave it to me, so I gave it to her to give back to him, because he's a freak," Tori explained.

"That bitch," I muttered.

"What?" Tori asked. Right. Tori didn't know about Caterina. She thought it was just me.

"Nothing," I said quickly.

"Why do you have it?" She asked. Well, shoot. I walked right into that one.

"I…" I stumbled, trying to come up with an excuse, "I asked Cat if I could have it." Wow, that sounded lame. Tori very obviously didn't believe me, but she didn't press me further. I rolled to the side of my bed, lying down. To my surprise, Tori did as well.

"You're ceiling's red," she commented, "I like it. It's very 'Jade,' but it's also…not."

"Thanks," I told her, because, to be honest, that was exactly what I was going for, "Do you want to stay for dinner?" I asked.

"Sure, let me text my mom." I heard the tapping of her nails against her Pearphone. She'd gotten the XT after all, I noticed.

We just sat there, in that uncomfortable silence, until dinner. I put my arm around her shoulders at one point. She didn't brush it off. She didn't make any comment at all. She just stared at my red ceiling.

I didn't know how – if – this was going to work, but there was a definite maybe aspect about the entire situation.

Unlike Jade, I have this knack for being able to deal with maybe.


	16. Chelsea

**A/N: Yay, Spring Break! I might just finish this story yet! I know that last chapter was reeeaaallly uncomfortable between Jadelyn and Tori, and I'm going to make this better, maybe. I really hope you guys aren't getting sick of this story. Also, I'm trying to make this as little AU as possible, so _Tori and Jade's Playdate_ is incorporated in this chapter.**

Well, I explained that I'd told Tori everything, and dinner was way easier. My dad was actually more talkative than civil. It was so nice. Thank God for my parents, because the uncomfortable silence in my room was getting too hard to handle.

Tori went home shortly after dinner. As she left, she kissed me on the cheek.

"What was that for?" I asked her. She didn't feel the same way, and I knew that. Instead of answering, she smiled and reached into my front pocket, pulling out the necklace with the red chord. Then she walked back into her car, waving before she got in.

I woke up the next day feeling a lot happier about my life. Tori was coming around. Not to be my girlfriend – I could never ask her to be that, she's straight – but to be my friend, to accept me as Jadelyn.

"So, I thought I said no girlfriends in your room," My mom said, handing me my coffee.

"She's not my girlfriend," I told her, rolling my eyes.

About a week passed. We had to do this play for Sikowitz's class, where we played husband and wife. Well, I dare say I make a very convincing Jade West, so much so that Sikowitz set Tori and me up on a 'date' in order to make us friends. It _would_ have ended up just being us talking, her getting to know Jadelyn a little better, but of _course_ Sikowitz had to send the class dorks to come and watch over us the entire night. That was harsh, sorry. Let me rephrase that. Sikowtiz sent Sinjin and….I think his name is Berf to watch us and make sure that we didn't skip out on this wonderful opportunity to become friends. So it ended up being really awkward. I begged Tori with my eyes to pretend that she didn't know the real me. She complied, more or less. We ended up singing to these guys to get them to back off, because they were totally hitting on us. The whole night was really awkward, but we ended up doing really well in the play. Even dressed as a man, Tori was gorgeous, and hearing her tell me that she loved me….well, the guys showed up again and totally ruined the moment.

So there we were, lying on my bed again. My arms were folded behind my head, and we were staring at that red ceiling again.

"I don't get it," Tori began, "How do you manage to act like Jade acting like Nancy absolutely perfectly? It's like…character inception." I laughed at the wonder in her voice.

"Years of practice, my friend." It felt good to call her that. Friend. It was way better than enemy, which was where we were a month ago. "Do you remember that scene in _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows___when Hermione took the potion and turned into Bellatrix, and then impersonated her?" I asked.

"Yeah…" I turned to look at Tori, who seemed rather confused at where I was going with this point.

"Well, to film it, they had Helena Bonham Carter – she plays Bellatrix – act out the scene the way that Bellatrix would. Then, they had Emma Watson act out the scene, playing Hermione imitating Bellatrix. Then, they had Helena Bonham Carter act the scene again, impersonating Hermione impersonating Bellatrix. That is far more character inception that playing Nancy with a Jade-like edge." I took a breath, because I realized that I was rambling.

"That's so cool," Tori told me, turning to look at me.

"Really?" I asked.

"Yeah, I mean, aside from the whole 'I'm as good as Helena Bonham Carter and Emma Watson combined' bit you just pulled there." She smiled at me, so I knew to take that sarcasm with a grain of salt. "Alright," she said, grabbing my wrist and pulling me off of the bed. She dragged me downstairs, said goodbye to my mom, and hopped in the car, where she let go of my wrist.

"What is going on?" I asked, as she threw open the passenger door. She looked at me with a suspicious gleam in her eye.

"Get in loser, we're going shopping." I laughed at the _Mean Girls_ reference and got in, confused.

We ended up driving over an hour to get to a mall where Tori thought we wouldn't get recognized. Apparently, she thinks that I needed some more Jadelyn-esque clothes for when I'm just hanging around my house. It'll upset my dad less, and, as she begrudgingly admitted, I looked good in light colors, which I guess she discovered from my "Nancy" costumes.

We ended up having a lot of fun shopping. I really hope you picture one of those shopping montages from one of those really girly movies. Maybe let's add a fun song in there, too. How about "Chelsea" by the Summer Set? That's a fun one.

We ended up getting me lots of pinks and light blues and some green and orange and I felt like a girl for the first time in ages. A real girl, not just some character. It was very different than hanging out with Eli, where he acted like my older brother or something. Eli got me, but, with Tori, there really wasn't anything to get. Everything just sort of was.

"When am I ever going to get a chance to wear these?" I asked her, as we went back up to my room.

"Jade…" I heard my mom's condescending voice following us.

"She's NOT my GIRLFRIEND!" I cried in a rather Jade-like manner. Tori just laughed.

I plopped the bags on my floor and Tori sat on the edge of my bed, next to me. I looked at her and smiled. She would never be my girlfriend, but I was so glad that we could be friends. Then Tori leaned in really close to me.

Wait, what?

I pulled back before anything happened. Tori looked brutally upset at my rejection.

"Tori, wait," I began.

"No, obviously you don't want me. You're over that dumb crush, I guess." She looked so hurt. She got up to leave.

"Tori, no! That's not it at all!" I jumped up and grabbed her wrist, keeping her from exiting my dark room.

"Then what?" She asked me. You could see in her eyes how serious this was to her. I couldn't get away with witty sarcasm or changing the subject this time.

"You're…you're straight, and I'm not going to have you do anything you don't want to do just because I'm making you feel uncomfortable or pressured." I told her.

"I don't know what I am," Tori admitted, taking a step closer to me, "But what I do know is that I like you, as more than a friend, and I really, _really_ want to kiss you right now." I just looked at her for a moment, processing this all. I took the wrist I still had and pressed her hand against my face. It felt nice and warm and soothing. I took my other hand and placed it on the back of her neck, bringing her face to meet mine. We kissed, and it took my breath away. I could feel her mouth smiling into the kiss, and I smiled back.

"Shoot," I muttered, pulling away.

"What's wrong?" Tori looked worried again. I laughed.

"This means we can't be in here. We have to go down to the living room or something," I informed her.

"Why?" Now Tori looked confused.

"Because," I told her, "my mom said no girlfriends in the room." I met her lips with mine again in a quick kiss before taking her hand and leading her down the stairs.


	17. Human Nature

**A/N: Can I just say how awesome you guys are? You are SO AMAZING! I got over 900 readers yesterday! AHHH! So, time for happiness and Jori? Nope, I'm just going to torment you with another chapter of angst, because I really don't want to wrap everything up in a nice and tidy bow quite yet. Although, this chapter has a different sort of angst. No more of that self-loathing that kills me to write.**

Coming into school the next day was a strange sensation. I walked in, and people stared. I put my hand up to my face to make sure that I hadn't forgotten my piercing – I hadn't. And that's when the whispering started.

It was all aimed in my direction – I could tell from those nasty, gossipy glares. I opened my locker and paused, listening for what they were saying. I caught words like "lezzie" and "you're kidding" and "totally gay" and "what a dyke" and "no, I'm _dead_ serious." I felt my heart race as the world suddenly started to move in slow motion.

No. They couldn't find out. Not now. Oh, God no. Oh, please.

I noticed Caterina at the end of the hallway, smirking slightly. She did this. That's what her eyes said. She'd done this, because she thought that I was sick. She did this because she thought that everyone should be warned before hand, before I corrupted anyone else. But how could she know? How could she possibly know about Tori and…

Of course. Why? Why would she do that to me? I thought she liked me? I genuinely thought she cared for me. I was so stupid to believe that. I was blinded by love or some other dumb, cheesy, romantic line from some dumb movie. She told Caterina. She didn't care how I felt, did she?

I walked over to Caterina. I knew we couldn't break character, so I murmered to her in hush tones. I had a plan, and this meant war.

"Why did you do this?" I asked her.

"You're sick. Everyone needed to know." She kept a slightly giggly face, keeping in character, in case anyone was watching.

I grabbed Caterina by the shoulders and pulled her close, crushing my mouth against hers. I made it look like she kissed me first. It was a crowded hallway. People noticed immediately. I pushed my hands against her shoulders, breaking our lips apart.

"Meh, Cat, get off of me!" I cried, "I'm really sorry, but I don't feel like that about you, seriously! But the rumors you made up aren't going to make me feel differently! I love you, Cat, just not like that." My rant was loud enough for everyone in the hallway to hear. My acting was spot on, and I let a tear roll down my cheek, the one that had been festering earlier. I put my hand to my face, realized that the tear was there, and held that hand where it was. "Out of my way!" I cried, stomping in my most Jade-like manner into that godforsaken janitor's closet. I sat down and let the tears fall down my face. I was silent – no one would hear Jade West cry, I would make sure of that.

I didn't have long before Tori came barging in.

"You told Cat!" I accused, screaming. It wasn't a question.

"Of course I did! She's my best friend! Now, what the hell did you do that to Cat for?" She demanded. I wiped the tears off my cheeks, grateful to have remembered to use my new waterproof eyeliner, and looked up. "What did Cat ever do to you? She is, like, the most innocent girl in the world and _she's_ the one you pick for damage control? I'm sorry if the truth hurts your rep, but Cat is not at fault here!"

"You're joking, right?" I asked, dumbfounded, until I remembered that Tori still believed in 'Cat.' As much as I hated the girl, as much as she made my life a living Hell, I just couldn't ruin Cat's secret like that. So I mumbled, "It's stupid, leave it alone."

"Cat didn't start those rumors, Jay." Cat didn't, sure, but Caterina did. If only Tori could know! No, Jadelyn, you can't do that. You aren't like Jade – you're a decent human being.

"Never mind, okay?" I wished she would just drop it.

"I do mind! Cat is our _friend!_ I don't care that she thought you were too mean to hang out with! You know what, she's right! You're a cruel, awful person. I don't care if it _was_ acting – that was low!" Tears began to fall down my face again as she said this.

"I'm sorry," I said, my voice cracking, "You just, you don't understand! And I can't _tell _you!"

"You can't tell me? Seriously? There's _more_ you're not telling me? Oh, this is rich, coming from the girl who's _supposed_ to be in love with me." She shouldn't have said that. I'd never heard a meaner sentence come out of that girl's mouth. That was low, especially for her. And she was yelling at me for my damage control.

I didn't answer. We just stared awkwardly at each other for a little bit. I could tell that she regretted what she'd just said, but I could also tell that she knew I wasn't sorry for what I had done. She didn't know why I'd gone out of my way to hurt Cat. She obviously didn't think it was okay. But Caterina had hurt me, and if that meant hurting Cat, I would do anything to get back at her for the heck she's put me through lately.

"Well, look at you two, all cozy," Caterina said, entering the closet, "I guess you managed to corrupt her after all. Don't think that your little stunt back there helped anything."

"What?" Tori asked, "who are you and what have you done to Cat?"

"Oh, Jadey-wadey didn't tell you?" Caterina asked, rather sarcastically. I narrowed my eyes.

"No. Unlike you, I don't tell secrets that aren't mine to tell," I told her, although, technically, this whole thing had been my idea in the first place.

"Well, it was for the good of the school that I did. Now you won't be corrupting anyone. Except maybe Tori. It seems you got to her better than I did," She informed me. With that, she reached into Tori's pocket, and pulled out a red chord strung with beads. My eyes were too watery to see the colors, but I knew it was my necklace.

"What is going on?" Tori demanded, "who _are_ you two?"

I couldn't take this anymore. I wiped the tears from my eyes, took a deep breath, focused, and stormed out of the closet. I found Eli, sitting on the steps.

"Let's ditch, please?" I asked. There weren't enough people around at this point for the 'please' to matter that much. He nodded. I walked straight out to the parking lot with him with a calm, slightly angered expression on my face, in case anyone was watching. I got into my car. Eli slid in next to me.

I realized that I never responded to what Tori asked.

To be honest, I had no idea who I was anymore. Jade and Jadelyn had melded together somehow, and if I didn't fix things soon, there would be no turning back from this mistake.


	18. Do You Believe in Magic

**A/N: Well, unfortunately, I'm stuck as far as ideas go. In an effort to get over this cold-induced writer's block, I am going to write a fluff chapter. I refuse to call it smut, because that sounds gross and dirty, and Eli is a significant presence in the chapter, but there will be kissing, so be warned.**

I drove Eli far out of the city. I ended up driving him to some secluded back parking lot I found at random. I had no clue where we were. Thank God for GPS.

That's when I let myself break down. I started crying and crying. I wasn't even that mad anymore. Out here, when it was just Eli and me, nothing back in LA really mattered. It wasn't real. It was some fake life that I was living. That fake life has a way of catching up with people though, hence the tears. I mean, that stuff that was happening was happening to me was ruining everything I'd spent the last five years building. I didn't care so much about it getting out that I was bisexual, I really didn't. It was the "why" and the "how" that were killing me.

Well, Eli didn't let that last too long. He opened all the doors to the car. I had to stop crying to see what he was doing. Then he motioned for me to get out of the driver's seat.

"So," he began, "my sister decided to make some mixes, because she's spending Spring Break at my grandma's and my grandma only has CD players, and my mom won't let her take her iPod. I took one, it says 'Happy Songs' on it, and we, my friend, are going to listen to it."

"We're going to listen to the playlist of a twelve-year-old?" I didn't know why he thought it was going to make me feel better.

"Yes," he said, sliding the CD into my player. Oh my gosh. This song started. It was familiar enough, and I knew instantly that Jade West found it seriously annoying. Why did I recognize it? This was going to bug me. And then the chorus started.

"What Makes You Beautiful." I rolled my eyes. Typical twelve-year-old. I mean, I didn't hate this song, but the theme was too common, the lyrics were too cheesy, and the "boy-band" effect just made the song sound like Justin Beiber was somehow cloned. I shuddered at _that_ idea.

Of course, he grabs my hand and starts dancing. I had no clue what was going on. I went with it, and danced with him. He twirled me. I put my hand free hand on his shoulder and he put his at my waist, and we mocked some semblance of a waltz. Then we just started having fun with it.

I found it impressive that he knew every word, but then "Sparks Fly" started to play. And he knew every word to that one too. It happened to be the song we were doing in lyrical dance class as our "fun number." So he sang (off-key, he was a much better actor than he was a singer) and I danced. And somewhere along the line, I felt better. I was free of the confusing mess that I was stuck with back in LA. I didn't have to figure out who I was or what I was doing. It was just me, whoever I was, and my best friend, and we were hanging out and having fun. I didn't have to worry about staying in character, I didn't have to focus my facial expressions, I didn't have to do anything but dance.

And then "Rush" came on. Oh my God, this girl is the epitome of a twelve-year-old. How old was she when Aly & AJ were big – I mean, I must have been ten or eleven. I laughed and pulled Eli back into the dance.

I flung my arm out for some random reason – I think I was doing one of those "Sound of Music" spins. A small, soft hand grabbed mine and pulled me close. Another hand landed hard and sharp on my shoulder, stopping me from going too far into the spin. I locked eyes with her and smiled.

Tori and I began to tango. I'm dead serious – we'd needed to know how for _Rent_, when we did that back in September. We were both in the chorus, so we had to tango in "The Tango Maureen." They paired girls with girls and guys with guys for "dramatic effect" or something like that. Anyway, you wouldn't believe how easy this song is to tango to, although I think we may have been moving in a more foxtrot-esque rhythm.

The song ended. I slipped my arms around her waist, hugging her close to me.

"Thank you," I murmured into her hair.

"Okay, that was not fair! You totally stole my dance partner!" Eli complained.

"Oh really?" Tori pulled away from my hug with a smirk. I pouted when she did, and she winked at me. She walked over to Eli and pulled him close. They began to tango as "Run This Town" began to blare from my car speakers.

They were not half as good as I figured Tori and I were, but then again, Tori and I had already had the choreography and Aly & AJ are seemingly easier to tango to than Lucy Hale.

"So," I asked as they finished, "who's a better dancer – me or Eli?" I sat down on the back of my car.

"Oh, Eli for sure," Tori assured me, sitting down next to me and slipping her arm around my waist.

"Really?" I asked, putting her arm around her shoulders.

"Really," she murmured, and I brought her mouth up to meet mine. She smiled into the kiss before pulling away. She adjusted her position so that her legs were lying on my lap and she kissed me again.

It was great, but then my watch beeped, totally ruining the moment.

"I totally forgot!" I muttered, clambering off the car.

"What?" Eli and Tori asked simultaneously.

"My audition!" I was going to go during lunch and I was going to get the afternoon off from classes, if you were wondering. "I gotta get going!" With that, Eli and I clambered into my car and Tori into hers. I smiled wide. I was so excited I could scream, and after this bizarre morning, I was really quite happy.

**A/N: Yeah, don't worry – I'm not going to drag this story on forever. That actually seriously helped my writer's block considerably, and I have plenty ideas of where to go from here. *wink wink* And if anyone wants the names and artists of the songs I've been using either in the story or as chapter titles, just let me know. **


	19. You Better Believe

**A/N: I don't really have anything to say except thanks for the reviews, because they make me smile. Oh, and, you're right, it wasn't smut, last chapter. It wasn't supposed to be, but I did initially intend to add a make-out scene that got cut in the editing process because I wrote it in a way that Eli would be there the whole time and it would have just been awkward.**

Eli drove the car while I changed in the back. I was not about to go to my audition for the prissy romantic lead while dressed like Jade. I had packed a light-pink top with some dark gray leggings and white ballet flats. Tori picked out the top – it was synched at the waist and had ruffle-y, capped sleeves with white stitching. It was really cute. I pulled my hair up into a ponytail after taking out my extensions and my piercing. I used makeup remover to wipe off my tattoo and the majority of the makeup on my face, before reapplying far subtler makeup. I pushed a few gold-colored bracelets around my wrist and shoved my mom's gold posts into my ears. I checked myself in the hand mirror I brought – I looked great, to be honest.

We got to the studio in record time. I grabbed the folder of my audition information from the back of my car, and caught up with Eli and Tori.

"I am so nervous," I whined, taking Tori's hand.

"You'll do fine, Jay," Eli reassured me. Tori smiled at me and gave my hand a squeeze.

We walked into the waiting room to find the last people that I expected to see.

There were Beck, Andre, Robbie, and Rex, although Rex doesn't count as a person.

I was taken aback a bit by the sight of them and hurried to a chair, where I buried my face in my folder, muttering my lines to myself as I eavesdropped on their conversation.

"What are you guys doing here?" Tori asked.

"Well," Beck explained, "we decided to come and support Jade. Not my idea, but we all agreed that she would need some support after what happened today. We all care about her. Why are you and Eli here?"

"Same reason," Tori said.

"I didn't know Eli and Jade were friends," Andre stated.

"Well, we are," Eli answered, "Where's Cat?"

"Well, after what Jade did to her today, do you blame her for not coming?" Beck asked rather snidely. That killed me. I still can't get used to not being her friend.

"Hey, where is Jade?" Robbie asked, "I didn't see her come in with you guys." I looked up from my spot in the corner. Oh, this was going to be good. Eli and Tori exchanged worried glances before Tori gestured in my direction.

"Girl, that chick ain't Jade!" Rex exclaimed.

"Hush up," Andre told him, "I think it is." I smiled sheepishly and gave a small wave. I contemplated how I could play this off. There was the all-out reveal, the wait-for-them-to-come-up-with-an-explanation-first method, or there was the quick lie method.

They all walked closer to me. A tall, dark-haired woman in a suit walked into the room.

"Jadelyn Amanda West, you're up," She said. I swallowed.

"Wish me luck," I told Tori, forgetting all about the situation. Right now I was Jadelyn. I was auditioning as Jadelyn. I was not scary Jade Agatha right now.

"Good luck," Tori smiled and pecked me on the lips before gently pushing me toward the door. I gave her hand a squeeze and walked out, but not before hearing Beck.

"Your middle name is Agatha…" Eli and Tori were going to have to deal with this for me. Right now I needed to dissolve into Meredith Jameson.

I walked into the studio to find a panel of people waiting to judge me. The director, the producer, the casting director, and whatever assistants they wanted to bring along. I took a deep breath.

"Hi, I'm Jadelyn," I told them, smiling and handing them my resume.

"Good afternoon, Jadelyn," The casting director told me, "Step right in the center there -" I walked to the center of the room "- good. Now, begin."

"I didn't want you to find out this way," I admitted.

"Well, the politics at this school aren't really my business anyway. You're still my best dancer, and you're still taking the lead in show. You are Beauty. No one else knows the part as well as you," The casting director informed me, reading for Paul's character.

"What if everyone finds out?" I asked, concerned.

"They won't. And if they do, what's the worst that could happen?" He replied.

"Well, for one, I could get kicked out of school and my dreams and everything I've worked for will be completely over." I thought about Beck and the others, and everything I'd worked for, crumbling down around me because of my own scandals.

"No one will find out. I'll help you, I promise." The casting director was almost worse than Sikowitz. But I had to keep reading, keep in character. I was good at that.

"How? How can you promise such a thing? And why would you?" I was nearly crying, thinking of Caterina and how she didn't keep my secret.

"I can hide all of this from Dr. Pond, I really can. I can burn it. She'll be suspicious, sure, but she won't know to look at me for where the evidence went. And you won't know a thing, because I won't tell you where I'm going to destroy the papers." He told me.

"But _why_? Why would you do this for me?" I begged, remembering my emotion from my rehearsals with Sikowitz.

"Please don't make me say it out loud." He responded. Oh dear Lord, his acting was terrible.

"So I'm not making up these feelings, I'm not the only one who feels what we have between us." I kept the emotion locked into my voice. By now all the thoughts of Jade and Jadelyn were gone. Now I was Meredith, falling in love with her – rather apathetic – dance instructor.

"If anyone ever finds out…"

"They won't," I cried softly, breaking into a grin. I took a few steps forward closer to him, just like I'd practiced, before continuing, "you and me, here and now, our feelings for each other, that's all that matters."

"How do I know you aren't only saying this so that I'll keep your secret?" He asked me, glaring.

"Because if you try to get in my pants, I'll kill you," I laughed, softly, "and because you can't fake _this_." I stopped at the kiss, because that's where I was supposed to stop. I took a step back and smiled at the panel, pulling out of my character.

"Great," the producer told me, "you'll be hearing from us."

"Thank you," I said, breaking into a grin, "Have a great day." They waved at me as I left. Meredith's adrenaline was still pumping in my veins as I walked back into the waiting room.

Everyone stopped talking and looked at me as I entered.

Time for the real show to begin.


	20. Cough Syrup

**A/N: I feel like this story is winding down. That kind of bugs me, just a little bit. This story is my baby. Maybe I'll do a sequel, although I have zero idea what I'd do for it. Don't mind me, just thinking aloud here. Oh, your story? Right this way. Oh shoot, did I mention that I don't own _Victorious_? My bad. So not Dan Schneider here.**

I exhaled. I was clammy and nervous.

"Well," Tori began, "how'd it go?" Oh thank God. Stalling time.

"It went great!" I said with a smile. She held out her arms and I accepted her hug. She squeezed tight. I guess she and I both knew that whatever we had between us wasn't going to end well in my current situation.

I untangled myself from her arms and sat down.

"So," I asked, "what did Eli and Tori tell you guys?"

"Apparently," answered Beck, "you are Jadelyn Amanda West, and everything we know about you is a lie, and you've been lying to us for five years, just because it would be a 'fun acting challenge.'" Well, that was true, but the sarcastic tone with which he said it was really harsh.

"Yeah," I said, guilt enveloping me.

"Guess that's why Cat doesn't like you, huh? She found out?" Andre inquired.

"Something like that," I murmured.

"Jade," Robbie started.

"Jadelyn," I interjected. I mean, now wasn't the best time to get picky, I guess that bit of Jade was sort of stuck in me.

"Whatever," Robbie responded, "the point is, you lied to us. All of us. That's not cool. We were your friends." With that, Robbie left, and so did Andre. I guess "were" was right. Beck hesitated, before following them.

"Beck, wait!" I called out, "Can we talk?" He made some weird gesture that was halfway between a shrug and an eye roll that showed that he didn't really care.

"We'll give you two some space," Eli said, patting my shoulder.

"Thanks," I told him, giving him a small smile. Tori kissed me on the cheek and then left with Eli. I looked at Beck, suddenly feeling the overwhelming self-consciousness that had been poking its way through the guilt during this entire ordeal.

"Well?" Beck broke the silence.

"Please just forgive me, please." I begged, meeting his eyes.

"Wow, I guess you really aren't Jade," he mused, taking a seat next to me. He had is arms crossed and his body was turned away from me. Not a good sign. "Was this why we broke up?"

"What?" I asked, avoiding the answer, just in case I misread the question.

"Why did we break up?" he asked again.

"You want to know if we broke up because of Tori." I clarified.

"I'm not really sure what I'm asking. Our entire relationship was a lie." The ice in his voice weighted all his words to the point where I shivered.

"No, Beck, that isn't true! I loved you!" I told him.

"Did you?" He asked, turning to face me, "because if you really did, why did you lie to me? Why didn't you tell me who you were the moment that I first kissed you?"

"Because I didn't tell anybody! I couldn't!" I cried, tears welling in my eyes.

"You could have told me!" His voice was angry now.

"No, Beck, I really couldn't! You wouldn't have understood! You _don't_ understand!" I begged him to understand with my eyes.

"Like hell I don't! You wanted this. I get that. You think I wouldn't get the ambition and drive it takes as an actor? You have to want it. You have to want it more than anything else in the world! You have to put yourself out there. You think that I wouldn't have understood how you could put yourself out there in the most vulnerable way possible? I'm an _actor_ Jade! Just like you! I get it!" He ranted, standing up. The other girls and supportive friends in the room were staring at us.

"Jadelyn," I corrected, softly. I didn't know what else to say. The tears had spilled over my lids at this point.

"And what is going on with Tori?" He finally asked, coming down from his rant.

"I…I don't actually know. I'm in love with her, and she likes me," I replied, choosing my words carefully.

"Did you ever really love me?" He asked, softer this time.

"You mean can I love guys?" I clarified. He nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I can. And I did love you. But you loved Jade, and Jade isn't me."

"You could have let me get to know you," he told me.

"I could have. But then, would you be falling in love with me just because you were in love with Jade?" I responded, "It was way too much obligation to ask of you. Besides, if I told anyone, then everything would just get totally screwed up. And I was also kind of scared you would have dumped me."

"I kind of dumped you anyway," he said, smiling a bit.

"Technically I instigated the dump," I told him. He laughed.

"Yeah, I guess you did." He got up, and offered me a hand. "Jadelyn," he offered, "would you like a ride home? Because I think Eli took your car."

"I'd love one." I accepted his hand, and he led me out of the waiting area.

**A/N: I know that wasn't really long, but this is just how it came out! Sorry!**


	21. Set It Off Like Napalm

**A/N: Sorry for the filler chapter! It needed to happen sometime, and my ideas aren't flowing as well as they did in the beginning! I'm working on it!**

Beck dropped me off. We didn't talk the entire way home. I guess that's how it usually is with your ex. I don't know. All I know is that now my secret was out to everyone that mattered. Part of me was relieved. Part of me was really nervous as to what would happen tomorrow.

So how did I deal with my problems? I caught up on _Smash_, ate a slice of cake, and did my homework. Not necessarily in that order. Okay, yeah, in that order.

The next day at school was a strange one. I walked into Sikowitz's classroom before first period to find most of the class already there. Caterina was in my seat, seated next to Robbie. Tori and Beck were up in the front of the classroom. Eli wasn't in this class this year. Andre was in front of Caterina and Robbie. We had divided up into factions. Well, factions wouldn't _really_ be the right word, because factions seek to be the highest power and it's a bunch of politics. Maybe they were factions. It was Caterina vs. Jadelyn, although no one knew about Caterina except Tori, Eli, and I.

I took a seat behind Tori and Beck. I was Jade, after all. Jade would not sit next to her ex-boyfriend, and even though she's developed a tolerance for Tori, she still wouldn't sit next to her. I looked over at Caterina, who was watching me intently, waiting for me to make the first move. People were still giving me weird looks in the hallway, whispering about me behind my back. That little stunt I pulled kissing Cat yesterday did help the whispering, but it changed it quickly to "Oh my gosh, she's such a bitch! Why would she do that to poor Cat?"

"Alright, that's enough," I muttered, as in-character as I could. I got up from my chair, practically throwing the thing to the ground, grabbed my bag, and grabbed Caterina's wrist as I pulled her out of the classroom. I have to say, that's one of the more fun elements of being Jade. I can just drag people places. There's a certain power to it.

The smell of bleach had died down in the janitor's closet, thank God. Caterina and I just stared at each other for a second, before she tried to walk away. I moved my body in front of the door. She hadn't been a jock since we were twelve, and I was way taller than she was – there was no way that she was getting out of this closet without talking to me.

"What do you want?" Caterina asked, eyes narrowed and hair seeming to curl up on its own at the edges – the way a witch's hair does in the movies.

"I want to talk. I'm still the same girl I was back when I was dating Beck," I told her. I had to get through to her. I had to make things right. It'd been less than two months since my life started going haywire, and already I was desperate.

"You don't get to _talk_ anymore. You are _not_ the same girl I thought you were. You are sick and disgusting and you need help!" She cried, trying to move past me. Even with her in heels, I was still taller, so she couldn't get through.

"_You_ need help!" I shot back, "You can't see through your thick curtain of prejudice for five minutes to see that Tori makes me _happy,_ way happier than I was with Beck. Isn't that what Cat is always saying, that everyone deserves to be loved and be happy?" I asked. It was a low blow, sure, but I needed to get somewhere.

"I'm not Cat. She's mentally screwed up. She never knows what she's thinking. And if you know what's good for you, you'll remember that. Mentally screwed up people will accept this little love game of yours, but everyone else will know that Jade West has gone soft and sick," she told me, burning holes through my eyes as she tried once more to get past.

"Funny thing is though," I began, standing firm against her struggles, "Jade has always been soft when it comes to love. Everyone knew that my boyfriend was the only one who could really control me. Everyone knew I bent to his will. Love makes Jade West soft. It's part of who she is, and it's part of who I am."

"Rationalizing Jade's feelings for Beck won't make a difference when people discover she's dating a _girl_." Caterina told me, giving up at getting out.

"That's because Jade isn't dating a girl," I replied, "Jade and Tori _may_ get along now, but Jade is straight. _I_ am not. _I _am dating Tori. I'm not Jade, just like you're not Cat. And people aren't going to find out about the real me or you, are they?"

"I don't know," she responded coolly, "are they?"

"Only Eli and Tori know about you. Robbie, Beck, and Andre know about me," I informed her, "but none of them will tell."

"Will you?" she pressed.

"If I do, I'll let you know." I told her, "Cat and Jade have been best friends for years. Throw off that dynamic and everything falls to shambles. Jade is straight. Be Jade's friend, if you aren't mine. Please," I begged, "I need you. I can't do this alone."

"You're not alone," Caterina scoffed, "You have Eli and Tori."

"They don't know what it's like, pretending every day to be completely different than you are. Please. Cat loves everyone, and _forgives_ everyone. Just be Cat. I'll be Jade. Everything'll be like it used to." I begged.

"Fine," Caterina consented, possibly just to get out of the closet, "but you _owe me_, baby girl." I smiled as she quoted me.

"I know," I said, giving her a smile. I let her leave, and we walked back to class, which had started by now.

"Ah, excellent," Sikowitz cried as we came in, "you both managed not to kill each other! Jade, I have news from the casting director!" I took my seat and looked at him.

"Yay, Jadey!" Cat squealed, smiling hugely at me. God, I'd missed that.

"Drumroll please," Sikowitz commanded. The class complied and he continued, "Jade West, you have yourself a callback!" The class clapped, and I beamed. I checked myself, forcing it into a smug, of-course-I-got-it grin. "You will be going tomorrow after school to the studio, where you will dance!"

That got me nervous. I could dance just fine, but only with Jade's edge, because everything was sharp and swift and confident. I would have to be Jade for my audition. I was scared that her attitude would ruin everything for me. I'd never tried to mash Jade and myself together before. My clothes, my voice, her dancing. I didn't know how that would work. I'd never slipped that quickly in and out of Jade's personality before, except by accident.

I'd have to practice with my mom tonight. They were going to give me new choreography tomorrow, of course, but I could always practice to one of the songs we were doing for lyrical dance class.

I don't think "Sparks Fly" would work too well to capture Jade's personality. Actually come to think of it, it might work perfectly, fitting my personality into Jade's choreography. It was way more of a me song than a Jade song.

This could all work out after all.

…

Right?

I had this weird feeling that this would all just blow up in my face.

**A/N: Sorry if the dance concept is a little weird, I wasn't really sure how to phrase it. If anyone doesn't get what's going on, just feel free to review this or PM me asking about it, and I'll rephrase it. (Hey look, a shameless plug to review. Hmmm, what do you know?)**


	22. Trust Me

A/N: Sorry for the late update! I really thought Spring Break would give me a chance to finish this story, but I'm nowhere near done! Shoot! Oh, and I don't own Victorious.

After school, my mom and I pushed everything in the living room to the edges to make room for my dancing. I got changed into my leotard and tights and pulled my hair back. Meredith did ballet, so that's what I was going to have to practice. I really hated ballet, or, at least, Jade did. It was too girly and exact for her. I'd never really formed an opinion on it – too much time in Jade's head and not enough in my own, I guess.

I brought down the vocabulary sheet from the ballet class I took freshman year. I kept it in a folder in case I needed it. I had a very strange assortment of papers like that. I guess I'm a bit of a pack rat. That's off track, isn't it?

Anyway, I plugged in Jade's iPod and started stretching. My mom was going to help me to the best of her ability. Basically, she was going to play loud, obnoxious music and call out different things from my sheet for me to do. I would infuse Jade's music choice with my dancing style. I hoped that it would work. If I put Jade into my head but kept myself in control, it could work. Oh, who am I kidding? I sounded like I was looney toons. I couldn't dance unless I pretended to be Jade. I couldn't be Jade if I wanted this part.

It ended up being a nightmare.

"Tone-do an Cho-is!" My mom shouted in badly pronounced French. I couldn't for the life of me remember what the heck that was in regular French, let alone how to do it. Dance Gavin Dance was blaring in the background, filled with the screaming of words that I couldn't make out. I sighed, flopped to the ground, and hit the button on the remote to shut off the music. Good thing, too, because one of Johnny Craig's rap songs was about to start playing. I really hated it. You can't honestly expect that being a coke addict and the frontman of a scream group is going to make way for a successful rap career.

The doorbell rang. My mom answered it.

"Honey," she asked, "were you expecting guests?" The tone in which she asked made it clear that it was okay for me to be Jadelyn. Thank God. I could not handle being Jade right now.

"No," I responded, walking over to the door. There stood Beck. "Hi," I said, confused as to what he was doing here.

"Tori told Eli that you needed someone to help you with ballet. Eli tried to get Andre to come around, but he still kind doesn't really understand 'Jadelyn,' so when I heard them arguing I offered to swing by instead," he explained.

"What do you know about ballet? We did salsa, remember?" I was a bit skeptical. I'd never seen him do anything other than theatrical dance or salsa.

"Just trust me, okay?" He told me, walking into my living room. He pulled out an iPod and plugged it into my speakers. "I got the soundtrack from when Hollywood Arts last did the ballet version of _Beauty and the Beast_. I figure if it's not the same music, it's probably similar. Now, dancing with a partner is a lot different than dancing solo, so I need you to follow my lead. And _trust me_." He turned on the music.

His hands moved firmly to my hips and he began to whisper in my ear. "First position," he instructed me. I placed my feet accordingly. "Now, plié." I did so. "Rond de jambe à terre." I did just that, and I noticed his legs moving so that I had room. "Keep your head up," he told me, "Now, you should be in fourth position." I checked my feet. "Head up, Jade. Jadelyn, sorry. Still getting used to it."

"It's fine," I told him with a small voice. I hadn't said anything thus far in his instructions. I wasn't used to being Jadelyn with Beck, and having him so close to me was making my head spin.

"I want you to pirouette, but don't land. Move your leg out to attitude. Okay? I've got you, I won't let you fall." I prepared for the pirouette and pushed off, twisting my body around. I felt Beck's hands let go of me for a brief second, before the caught me to hold me steady so that I could move my leg into an attitude. But it was too late. When I felt his hands slip from my waist, I made my leg land back into fourth position. Beck wasn't expecting it, and we both fell down. "Again," he said, "starting from the beginning."

It wasn't a hard combination. I should have been able to perfect it within ten minutes, but it had been thirty at this point. From the attitude, I brushed my leg back on the floor to push off for a jéte. Beck lifted me into the air, one arm around my thigh and the other around my waist as he glided in a small circle on the floor. That part was the hardest. I needed to trust him, and my trust was pretty shaky after everything that had happened since we broke up.

Eventually Beck and I decided that it was as good as it was going to get.

"You're a better dancer than this, I know you are," he told me as we sat on my couch.

"_Jade_ is a better dancer than this. I'm not exactly the most confident dancer in the world. I'm really bad, actually," I admitted.

"You are Jade. You have that confidence somewhere inside of you, Jadelyn! And keep in mind that you aren't dancing as you, you're dancing as Meredith. And Meredith is even better than Jade. Be Meredith." Beck left me with that statement as he went home to do his homework.

I sat down to write my history paper on the genocide in Rwanda. I hated the names. They were all so long! We have a long name in American history, and it's shortened. JFK, FDR….but not with Rwanda! It's all Habyarimanda, and Kayibanda and a bunch of other names that I had to respell three or four times. And it was all so sad. I went to bed hating the UN, because they did _nothing_ to seriously help. Maybe that anarchist guy at the Poetry Slam was right.

It was totally an idle thought, don't get me wrong, but then I realized that the next Poetry slam was less than a week away, and I had nothing prepared. I could always recite the lyrics to some obscure hipster song that Jade listens to, but then again, half the people in the café were probably hipsters. I sighed, and went to sleep.

The next day I was a nervous wreck. My mom drove me to school. She dropped me a block away, as per usual, but I had this insane urge to just stay there and never actually make it to school. Of course, the school would call my mom, and she would flip. She'd think the worst things that could possibly happen to me did happen. She was mad enough the other day when all those rumors were flying around and I ditched so that Eli and I could have fun dance break time in an abandoned parking lot sixty miles away. She called Tori and made her come and find us. (Apparently, my cell phone has a GPS locator that my mom can pull up online.)

I walked into school to find "Good Luck Jade" taped to my locker. I smiled, realizing that the scissors on my locker had all been put back up. Whoever went into my bag and got all of them out was getting screamed at by Jade, but Jadelyn was really, really pleased with it all.

I handed in my history paper before heading over to lyrical dance class.

"Ms. West, today you will head to ballet for special technique work before your big callback today," Ms. Johnson told me. I nodded, and headed over to the ballet class. They welcomed me well enough, but my black leotard for the lyrical class was an obscene contrast against the light pink ones.

And my God were they talented. One of the girls could pirouette four times before stopping! And half the girls were doing work en pointe. It just made my nervousness increase about a million times.

I was never going to make it through the afternoon.


	23. Eighty Eights

**A/N: Well, unfortunately, I sort of maxed out my dance terminology in the last chapter, so the callback is brief. Sorry to anyone that expected it to be longer.**

The callback was a disaster.

I walk in, and I get introduced to David. He's auditioning Jim, my dance partner in the movie, if I get my role. It goes sort of nicely, but this is my life. And everything fell to crap.

"Jade West?" A voice asked. I turned, confused as to why I wasn't being addressed as Jadelyn.

"Hi?" I asked, weary.

"I'm Scott Martindale. I lead some workshops at Hollywood Arts about a year and a half ago," He told me.

"Hi, I'm Jadelyn," I introduced myself.

"I know who you are, Jade. You had quite a reputation back at Hollywood Arts," He informed me, rather snidely. Shoot. He knew Jade. He knew her attitudes and her mood swings…

I worked hard at the audition. The ballet techniques he gave us were infused with some more lyrical moves so that people who hated ballet wouldn't get bored during the movie, and people who didn't really understand ballet would be able to understand it a little bit better. Why you would watch a movie about ballet if you don't understand or like ballet is beyond me, but that made the dancing easier. I'm pretty sure I did really well at the dancing, far better than I had expected to.

"Thank you," the director told David and me, as Scott left, "we'll inform the two of you as to whether or not you got the roles in the next few days."

I went home and focused on my Trig homework. I didn't understand it at the beginning of the year, and I don't understand it now. For some reason seven pi over three and pi over three are the exact same thing, and there are way too many circles for something that should be about triangles. I sighed, and wrote in "42" for all the answers I didn't get.

After I'd half-finished that, I called Eli. I told him about the audition, about Scott, and about Beck coming over and helping me.

"Woah, hold up, don't tell me you like Beck again," Eli interjected.

"No, don't be ridiculous," I corrected, "It was just nice to have him around again, just as friends, you know?"

"Alright, Jay, well, you'd better get some sleep," he told me, yawning.

"What about you?"

"I have to write a paper on the genocide in Rwanda," he stated.

"Wasn't that due today?" I asked.

"Yup," he said, before ending the call. I laughed, and tried to get some sleep.

Walking into Sikowitz's classroom, I could have thrown up. I was so nervous for Sikowitz to tell me if the director called. I really wanted this part.

"Hello, class!" Sikowitz called, popping in through the window. Come to think of it, he hadn't done that in a while. "Today," he began, "you will all pick your partners – no, no, let me finish before you start gibber-gabbering! You will all pick your partners and choose _two lessons_ that we have learned so far in the semester. You will fuse them together, and then spark-spark-boom! You will present your products with the class by the end of the period!"

Tori turned to Beck. It made sense, because I was Jade, but it kind of pained me inside, just a little. I looked over at Robbie and Cat, who had paired up, and then walked to Andre.

"You're my partner," I commanded him.

"Says who? Jade? She isn't the boss of me. She isn't even real," he said, obviously still mad. I grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the corner of the classroom.

"Look, I know you're mad at me. I get that. But don't be mad at Jade. Just think of it as more acting. Or something. I don't know, but I need a partner. And you are going to be my partner," I informed him.

"Why?" He asked, still really skeptical.

"Because no one will believe that you just turned down my demand," I told him.

"Well, they're gonna have to!" Andre decided, walking off.

"Ah, Andre! What have Jade and you decided to do for this lesson?" Sikowitz came up to us and asked.

"We're not actually working together," Andre told him.

"The entire class is paired up. You two just had a delightful conversation in this corner while everyone else picked their partners. If you two weren't partners before, you're stuck being partners now," Sikowitz finalized for us.

"We're doing poetic interpretation infused with unrequited longing," I told Sikowitz.

"What?" You could tell by Andre's voice that he did _not_ want to do either of those. I went to the side of the classroom and pulled a book of Shakespeare sonnets off a bookshelf, and grabbed the book of Sylvia Plath poetry from my bag. I held them out for him.

"Pick one," I directed. He chose the Shakespeare poems. "Good," I said, "now, you pick one of the lovey-dovey ones, and I'll pull out an angrier Plath poem, and we'll recite them as our lines. You're going to be in love with me, and I'm going to turn you down."

"Fine," Andre consented. He ruffled through the book a little bit before picking out Sonnet 130. Not exactly the best love poem, but I could make it work. I just needed to pick out a good Plath poem to match it up against. I flip to the page that contains Lesbos, just because I think it would be ironic if I read that one, after everything that's happened. I really liked this poem. It sounded like the sort of thing you'd hear in a Poetry Slam. It's very clear that she is talking to a woman. Shoot. We still had about a half hour until we had to present, though.

"Sikowitz," I called, "If we're going poems, can we change around a few of the words to fit the character we're directing them at?" I wasn't sure if the question entirely made sense, but I figured it would be better than addressing Andre as a woman.

"Sure," Sikowitz waved my question away, because Kristen and Rebecca were fighting again.

I took out a piece of paper and began to copy down my poem, changing the words from husband to wife and girl to man and a few other bits here and there. Andre looked over my shoulder.

"You can't be serious," he asked, looking at my page, "'Lesbos?' after everything that happened in the past couple of days?"

"It's ironic," I informed him, still copying down my poem. "This is a long one," I stated, "so you're going to have to do a lot of reaction."

"As long as you're not making me a woman," Andre clarified.

"You're a man. You're a married man. It's very scandalous." I informed him with a gleam in my eye. He laughed.

"Let me see that!" He said, ripping the book from my hands. "Dang," he muttered. I laughed. I finished copying down the poem, and we got to work.

"Sweetheart, that kleptomaniac/I am still raw./I say I may be back./You know what lies are for./Even in your Zen heaven we shan't meet," I concluded the presentation, turning my back on Andre and holding my position until the audience started clapping. I grabbed his hand and we bowed together. We'd done a pretty good job. I doubt anyone else would have juxtaposed those two poems to create unrequited love. We would so get an A.

"Jade, can I see you after class for a minute?" Sikowitz asked as we were leaving. I hung back.

"What's up?" I asked, sitting down in a chair.

"The casting director called," Sikowitz said, turning serious.

"And?" I asked, after he didn't finish his statement.

"The choreographer from the movie remembers you from one of his workshops a year or so back. He remembers what his dancers would say about your…behavior, so to speak. He knows of your reputation here, and he refuses to work with you."

"What?" I asked.

"You've been denied the role, Jade. I'm so sorry."

I paused for a second. I pulled out of my character as I processed this. Even without Jade, rage flew through my veins. I hated everything and everyone and this stupid game that I was playing.

I stood up.

I picked up my chair.

I turned to face away from Sikowitz.

I hurled the chair at a wall.

And I stormed out.


	24. If I Die Young

**A/N: Well, I only have a few more chapters planned. Here comes the beginning of the end…**

I think I got all the way to my locker before I flopped down and began to cry. I don't think any of the people here, except for maybe Eli, Tori, and Caterina, had ever seen Jade West cry. It wasn't silent, either. I was so sick of having to stay in character all the time. I was sick of being judged constantly for someone I _wasn't_.

I was done.

People probably gave me weird looks and scooted around me. I didn't look up from my knees. I just kept on crying. I wanted this part so badly. I didn't get it because of someone it wasn't my idea to be in the first place.

I noticed a familiar pair of purple ballet flats through my knees.

"Cat, I'm done." I called through the tears.

"What?" I felt a body sit down next to me. I looked up to see one incredulous fake redhead.

"I'm done being Jade West. I just wanted you to know. I won't tell anyone about you, I promise, but I'm out," I got up, no longer crying, and walked away.

I walked into History of Classic Rock with tearstains all over my face. I tried to act like it was nothing. People kept asking me if I was okay. That just made it worse. No, it's not okay! It's awful! I just got denied the part of a lifetime because I'm a pathetic, lying loser! Not to mention my alter ego is a total bitch!

I finished the day without making a single sound. I glared at anyone who tried to talk to me, so no one did. I stormed home, not even bothering to talk to my mom. I took three large garbage bags from underneath the kitchen sink, grabbed a handful of Ziplock baggies, and went to my room.

One by one, every bit of Jade's clothes got thrown into one of the garbage bags. Her jewelry went into individual Ziplock bags – one for necklaces, one for bracelets, one for earrings and my eyebrow piercing. Her belts and shoes went into another garbage bag. Well, except for the red, lace-up boots. I liked those. I took all of the scary pictures down from my wall, all of Jade's scary "toys" off of the shelves, and they all went into the remaining garbage bag. I took out some of my old things from the closet, and placed them randomly on the shelf. I was killing Jade West, and I was bringing Jadelyn back.

I saw my mom pass by my door a few times. I think she completely understood what I was doing, but she never made a comment. She just let me be.

When I was done, I looked at my nearly bare room. If I had gotten the job, I would have been able to afford to redecorate it. I guess I'd have to wait for a few more allowances before I could do that. Maybe I could assist my dad on the weekends at his law firm. Maybe there was some room in the budget, and I could get paid.

I didn't want to throw any of the bags out. They had become too much a part of me, all of this stuff. I walked to the hall, and pulled down the ladder to get into the attic. I took everything, one by one, up to the attic, and I shut the door.

Jade West was dead.

That night at dinner I explained it all to my mom and dad. They seemed pretty okay with it all. I did have to pay for the redecorating myself, as I had suspected. My dad said that he would look and see if the office needed some temporary weekend help.

I took a shower after dinner. My Jade makeup washed off my body for the last time. I walked into my room and pulled on my pajamas. It was almost an out-of-body experience, knowing that I was done. All this secrecy, all the lies, it was all going to be over.

Pulling on my pajamas, I heard my mom call up to me.

"Jadelyn, honey, Caterina's here!" My mom knew everything that had gone down between the two of us lately, so her voice seemed as shocked as my reaction was. I went down to the living room.

"Caterina, what are you doing here?" She looked small and innocent, not in a Cat-like manner, but in a way that I hadn't seen in years. She had on jeans and a sweatshirt, and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, for once not straightened.

"Can we talk?" She asked. With that, my mom left us alone. Although, knowing her, she was bound to be eavesdropping behind the kitchen door.

"What's up?" I asked, rather bluntly. I wasn't exactly anxious to talk to her. I motioned for her to follow me to my bedroom, where my mom couldn't eavesdrop. She seemed to understand my reasoning and took off her heels to quiet her footsteps.

"I talked to my mom about what's going on," she began, following me up the stairs.

"So?" I really didn't want to hear anything from her. I guess I didn't realize how mad I was at her. I had been moping and sad about this whole ordeal, but I was mad now.

"She said I was being a bitch," Caterina informed me.

"No kidding," I muttered.

"I want…Look, Jadelyn, I'm not supporting your choices. But they aren't my choices, and I can't make them for you. I'm not saying that I like what you're doing. But as your friend, it is my job to be there for you," she told me.

"Your mom tell you that?" I asked, opening the door to my bedroom.

"Yeah," Caterina admitted, walking into the room. She seemed rather shocked at the state it was in, and I let her take in her surroundings before I began my response.

"Well, if I was in your position, it would probably be hard for me to accept that I was friends with a homophobic, narrow-minded bitch, so I guess I understand where your coming from," I stated, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Caterina didn't say anything. She just raised her eyebrows in a motion that showed that she took responsibility for her actions. I sat down on my bed, and she sat next to me.

"I'm sorry I outed you," she told me.

"I'm sorry I kissed you," I replied. I really was sorry about that. I wasn't thinking clearly.

"So you're really done with all of this?" She asked, "Five entire years worth of a character just chucked down the drain?"

"I really am," I told her, "I just can't do it anymore. I can't be this awful, nasty, scary person. I'm not respected – I am feared. No one really likes me. They're just afraid to hate me."

"Robbie will come around. Beck already has, and Andre's getting there," she encouraged.

"I hope so," I responded.

"Will you miss it, the formidability of being Jade Agatha West?" She asked, a slight gleam in her eye as she awaited the answer.

"I'll miss the power that came from Jade, the confidence" I admitted, "She could do anything she wanted. I'm not going to get away with cutting class or doing creepy, half-baked book reports. Life is a lot different when you're a scary, demon-child."

"Well, at least people never treated you life a five-year-old," Caterina said. I stuck my tongue out at her, and she laughed. "I missed this," she admitted, "being friends without the tension."

"It's only been, like, a month since we were like this," I informed her.

"It's felt like years," she told me.

"I know. I'm glad you can look past my 'flaws,'" I replied, "I'm glad we can get this back." Caterina gave me a big hug, the kind that Cat would give. I hugged her back. As she pulled away, she checked her watch.

"Oh, man, I have to get home!" She cried, "You don't mind, do you? We can still talk tomorrow, if you need anything. I'm really sorry for the way I've been treating you. Can we do lunch?" I smiled.

"Sounds great. How about I pick you up at 11:30?" I asked.

"Thanks," Caterina added.

"For what?"

"For still being here for me, being my friend, even when I was a jerk to you. I don't deserve you being nice to me," she admitted.

"Oh, if you make one more nasty comment on my sexuality, I'm never speaking to you again," I clarified, "I give second chances, but I never give thirds."

"I'll keep that in mind." Caterina smiled, and left my room.

I don't have any idea what just happened, but I'm glad that it did.


	25. Hands Clean

**A/N: Okay, short chapter, because I just had this brilliant idea (*cue plot twist*) and it might give me the opportunity to extend this story for a few extra chapters than what I had in mind. Also, with this chapter, I'm trying really hard to paint both girls as "good guys." Do not take sides in your head and read it as such, because they both have valid points.**

"What's going on?" I hadn't even woken up yet, and there stood an angry Tori, hovering above me.

"mmmmggghhhwha?" I mumbled.

"What is this about you not being Jade anymore?" Why was Tori so angry.

"I'm done being Jade. I was going to call you…" I muttered, sleepily.

"You told _Caterina_ before you told me?" Oh, that's why she was angry.

"She is kind of my partner in crime with this whole thing," I reasoned, sitting up in my bed. I motioned for Tori to sit down, but she remained standing. "Besides, she and I worked out our differences and we don't hate each other anymore."

"Okay," Tori said, not entirely convinced.

"And I can be Jadelyn. We can be together without the weirdness," I added, reaching for her hand.

"Wait, you mean, _publicly?_" Tori recoiled from my touch.

"Yeah, no more lies," I clarified.

"I can't do that, Jay." Tori confessed in a small voice.

"What?" I asked.

"I can't be with you, not publicly. I don't know what this is, whatever we have between us -"

"You're my girlfriend," I interrupted.

"I'm what?" She asked.

"Aren't you?" I asked.

"I don't know. I like what's going on here, but I'm not comfortable with anyone knowing about it. It's bad enough the guys all saw us kiss at the audition. My parents, Trina….I can't have anyone knowing what's going on. I can't!" Tori ranted.

"What?" I asked again.

"I get that you've had this wonderful, come-to-Jesus moment with yourself and are ready to have the whole world knowing who you are. But I'm not! I don't have the relationship with my mom that you have with yours! I barely tell her anything – I can't have her or _anyone_ knowing that I think I might be a lesbian, or bisexual, or whatever," she continued.

"Think? You _think_ you might be gay? What do you call us then?" I yelled, angry now.

"I don't know! Don't you get it? I don't know what these feelings are! I don't know if they're love or if I'm just getting caught up in the moments! I'm your friend, Jadelyn. That's all that I am, a _friend_ who occasionally kisses you. I _can't_ be anything else! Not until I figure out what's going on with me," Tori finished.

"Get out," I blurted. I'd never felt more like an idiot in my entire life. She was just using me. I was a plaything to her. Tears threatened to ignite in the back of my eyes. I couldn't let her see me cry.

"What?" Apparently I had caught Tori off guard with my demand.

"Get out of here!" I cried, "I'm not about to sit here and be your dirty little secret when the one thing that I want right now is _not to have any secrets_! Get out! And don't come back!"

She left.

I broke down in tears.


	26. Give It Up

**A/N: I so thought I would have finished this by the time spring break was over. Keep in mind guys that Tori is not the bad guy. She's confused about her feelings and she's scared. You just think she's the bad guy because you are seeing this all from Jadelyn's eyes. Remember when you hated Cat? Oh, and I really don't own Victorious. I've messed around with this FanFiction too much for Mr. Schneider to even consider my offer. (That was a joke.)**

My world doesn't revolve around Tori. I didn't change because of Tori. Tori was just one of the results of me embracing who I truly am. Nothing I did was for Tori. All that I did happened and along the way Tori's mind games happened.

I texted Caterina, telling her what was going on and letting her know that I wouldn't be able to make lunch. I plugged in my iPod and blasted Adele music, flopping face-first on my bed. "Set Fire to the Rain." That was a good one. All the games that Tori played on me – they weren't true. She was just "getting caught up in the moments." Ugh, I wanted to kill her! I could always shank her with one of my many pairs of scissors. I laughed to myself, because I'm actually not entirely sure what shanking is. Then my music stopped midsong.

"What?" I muttered, looking up. There I found Caterina and Eli at the foot of my bed, holding the remote to my speakers along with a new copy of _Practical Magic_ and some mint chocolate chip ice cream. My mom stood in the doorway with my big, pink, Disney Princess spoon. I smiled for the first time since I woke up.

"You are not about to mope in angst for another week. You get one day, that's _it_." my mom explained, handing me my spoon. Caterina and Eli climbed onto my bed, next to me. I saw that they had spoons with them as well. Caterina tossed my mom the DVD and my mom popped it in the player.

We sat there watching as Maria was hung for her affair with a married man. We watched her escape. We watched her curse her family. We watched as the words 'Practical Magic' appeared in white letters on the screen. I sank back into my pillows and got lost in the movie and the ice cream and the comfort of two of my closest friends.

My mom came in to check on us periodically. As the movie ended, I looked up, expecting her to be standing in the doorway. There, in her place, was Beck. Wordlessly, he climbed on my bed, shoved in between Eli and me, and wrapped his arms around me. He held me like that, without a sound, until my breathing matched with his, and, caught up in the stillness and the silence, I fell asleep.

The nap really threw off my sleep when I went to lay down for the night, so I basically was up until two in the morning dwelling on Tori. The next day my dad took me into his office, where I interviewed with his boss for a part time weekend position. I ended up in the mail room, sorting envolopes into slots, which some other guy would then take out of the slots and put into some carts that we later took around to the various offices. Why I couldn't just sort them into the carts in the first place is beyond me, but there were so many names and places in this building that I didn't have much time to think about it.

Monday came. My big day, when I debuted Jadelyn for the whole school to see. I let my mom drop me off in front of the school. I gave her a smile before I got out, and she gave me a reassuring hand squeeze.

I pulled my bag over my shoulder, and opened the door. I felt as nervous as I did walking into school that first day in seventh grade. I had light brown hair then, dark clothes, a few white and pale pink colors in my hair. It was nothing compared to what Jade evolved into. Now, here I was, in a light green tank top, a white crocheted sweater, light jeans, and white flats. No hair extensions were clipped in, no peircing pinched my eyebrow. Butterflies filled my stomach like a flock of hummingbirds.

Suddenly, Caterina appeared on the left of me. Eli appeared on my right. Beck appeared somewhere in between. Each of them walked with me to my locker, making casual conversation as I pulled down each scissor, one by one. They stayed with me when I walked to Sikowitz's classroom, flanking me on either side, keeping me safe from the scary, dark stares of kids I didn't know who didn't understand. When I walked into the classroom and picked my seat in the back, they sat with me. They made me look at them and hold a conversation when Tori walked in to find her seat in the front with Andre. They were keeping me strong.

"Everybody, there's a huge…" Sikowitz stopped when he saw me. "Good Ghandi!"he exclaimed, "Jade, go to Lane's office.

"Jadelyn," I corrected, as a weight felt lifted off of my shoulders as I finally admitted it, "My name is Jadelyn."

"Lane's office. Now. Tori, I explained the lesson to you yesterday. Take over for today." He followed me out the door. I walked down the hall and into Lane's office.

"Jade?" Lane asked, hesitantly. Sikowitz gave him this look that said, "that was my reaction too!"

"Jadelyn," I replied.

"Right," Lane accepted, looking a little bit unsure.

"Jade seems to think it okay to change her entire personality simply because she was rejected for an audition," Sikowitz explained. Suddenly, a brilliant flood of red hair came bursting through the door.

"We can explain!" Caterina cried. She was Caterina in this moment – you could tell by her voice.

"Cat, get back to class," Sikowitz directed. She shook her head.

"Caterina," she told him. I almost laughed at how confused he was.

"Oh dear," I told Caterina, "This is going to take a lot of explaining."

"That's alright," she said, "your ex let me out early to go and help you."

"I didn't leave Beck in charge!" Sikowitz cried, leaping up. Then he paused, "Did I?" Caterina and I laughed, leaving the two men looking more confused than they had previously.

"No," I admitted. Turning to Caterina, I added, "and we were never together, not really." Caterina gave my shoulder a squeeze. I noticed Sikowitz doing a double, then a triple take at his coconut and straw.

I had expected this – being sent to Lane's office, the adults not getting it. I stumbled over my words as I told my story. I stumbled around the parts in my story involving Tori. Lane obviously picked up on it, and made me explain. I mumbled the parts about Caterina. Both Lane and Caterina picked up on those, and Lane, again, made me explain.

Somewhere during my tale, Sikowitz walked out.

"Girl drama! This is worse than my mother's bridge nights!" He called, backing out slowly through the door. Off again, I went, back into my story.

We emerged a long time later. Lane was going to keep the secret of "Cat," and he was going to make sure Sikowitz did, as well. He wrote us both late slips as we walked to our next classes.

I was relieved.

I was free.

I felt like I could take on the world.

**P.S. The chapter title song is _not_ the one from Victorious! It's by I Fight Dragons! You know what. I'll just put a song list at the end of this story. How about that?**


	27. The Rising

**A/N: Okay, so I know that last chapter was just filler, but I needed a believable transition. Haters gonna hate. Well, actually, no one hated. It was just an expression that I was using. Oh, never mind, just read the chapter! And review. If you want. Reviews make me happy. Send me ideas! I like ideas! I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going from here. Well, I have a general idea of where, but no clear concept of how.**

It wasn't until lunch that I talked to her. I had been dodging her calls all weekends. I was "in the shower" when she came over to talk on Sunday. I was in the back of the classroom as she sat in the front. Now, here she was, sitting at my lunch table.

"Hi," I said, sitting down.

"Hi," she responded. We didn't meet each other's eyes. I didn't know if it was just me, but here was another moment when you could literally feel the awkward. It wasn't like this with Beck. Then again, Beck didn't break up with me, he broke up with Jade. Also, my breakup with Beck was justifiable. Tori and my fight was just stupid.

"How are you doing?" Andre asked as I bit into my burrito. I looked up.

"I'm doing okay," I answered, "people keep asking about me, but I'm just ignoring it, letting them think what they want."

"They all think it's because of your audition," Robbie told me.

"They can think what they want," I replied, "I mean, I spent years as someone else that didn't care what anyone thought. Why should I start caring now, right?"

"I guess that makes sense," Andre noted. I smiled at him.

"Are you guys okay with this? I mean, I totally understand if you're mad or if you don't like me anymore, because I did lie to you, but I'd rather you say it to my face."

"Jade – Jadelyn," Robbie started, "we're mad because you lied to us, yeah, but you're our friend. We're totally going to support you." I smiled. I hadn't expected that. I expected something along the lines of 'we were friends, but you lied, and we weren't really friends with you, we were friends with someone else, so we aren't you friends anymore.'

"I'm not okay with is," Rex piped up, "I want my scary gothic hottie back."

"Shut it," I told the puppet, glaring at Robbie.

"Well, looks like she's still in there somewhere," Rex replied. I whacked the doll on the back of his head.

"Definitely," Tori agreed with a small smile. She got up then, throwing away her salad.

Tori didn't say anything to me for the rest of the day. I missed her quirky insights. Jade hated them.

It was weird to remind myself that I didn't need to think about that anymore. It made me sad. I didn't expect that. I missed her, Jade. I missed her weird sarcasm. I missed her way of observing each class, and the comments she made that were so typically _Jade_.

I could make them myself, all those remarks, I suppose. But it's never going to be the same. My interest in scissors. My obsession with weird, disgusting things. The screamo and punk music. The scary TV shows. I wasn't into all of that stuff. I had a lot of fun with it, but it just wasn't me. I have no justification for why I'd listen to Emarosa. I have no reasoning behind an obsession with scissors. I was kind of glad to get rid of the creepy jars filled with fatty disgusting _things_, but I would never get to enjoy the look on people's faces when they thought I was gross. I would never regain the popularity, even if it was by fear.

I would never be someone's worst nightmare and best friend at the same time. I would never be able to shock people at how impressive I was as an actress, because now they already knew.

I should have thought this through. Maybe I just got caught up in the moment.

Just like Tori did.

I sighed, my mind back on Tori.

I wasn't mad at her. I completely understood where she was coming from. I had been there when I discovered that Sally lived near me, after we got back from camp. And believe me, I knew what it was like to keep secrets. I also knew that up until me, Tori considered herself straight. I wasn't about to push her to do anything she didn't want to do. I was frustrated that she had reacted the way she did instead of calmly sitting down and explaining her feelings. I was sad that I created our relationship entirely in my head. But I wasn't mad.

I opened my locker, now a shade of black with clumps of glue all over it, and put my books in my bad as I prepared to head home for the day. I called my mom and told her I'd walk (I needed the fresh air to clear my head), so I was really hesitant to take a lot of books home.

There, shoved into the little vent at the top, was a red chord, strung with beads. Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple. A post-it note fell from the top of my locker and sat there at my feet. I was scared to open it.

_I'm so, so sorry._

I looked up, and I saw Tori looking at me from across the hallway, gauging my reaction. I gave her a small smile, letting her know I wasn't mad. I slipped my necklace around my neck and tucked it into my shirt. If anyone saw, they'd know it was Tori's, the one she was bragging about someone giving to her on Valentine's Day.

I wouldn't let that secret slip.

Not after that happened to me.

I grabbed my bag and headed out the door. Half a block away, I pulled out the necklace and began to fiddle with it, letting my mind wander.

My mom was taking me shopping for wall paint. I'd made $60 over the weekend, working for my dad. I contemplated the different colors. As Jade, I'd come to enjoy the color green. It contrasted with the black for a very "Wicked Witch of the West" feel. It totally wouldn't work with the red ceiling though. Unless I painted the ceiling. That ceiling was the one thing that had stayed constant throughout everything. But I was changing, right? Maybe it was time for a change.

I texted my mom to meet me at such-and-such a street corner, and she drove me to Home Depot. I picked out my colors and my mom bought a dropcloth. (Apparently, the old one got caught in the tires of my dad's car.)

Going home, I rushed through my homework. I skipped the chapters of _Emma_ that I had to read. I hated this Jane Austen unit we were doing. I'm sure the guys hated it more, but seriously, I'd seen the movie about four times, and the book was just _so dreadful_. I really don't care about how some picture that Harriet draws captures Emma's figure. And does Mr. Elton think so? He does. Does that mean he loves Harriet? Well, we were going to find out. But I'd seen the movie, so I knew the answer.

I pushed all of my furniture into the center of my room, and texted Beck, Caterina, and Eli to come over and help, before laying the dropcloth along a wall. My mom had been amazing and helped me rip down the wallpaper on Sunday, so here was just a bare wall, waiting to be covered in paint.

We all had a great time. We played music, danced, sang a bit, and covered the walls in a pale green paint. Then we all got on ladders and painted the ceiling as black as coal.

The black would remind me of Jade.

The green was me, all me.

I would take this one day at a time. And I would rock it.


	28. Ours

**A/N: I am so thankful to everyone who read this story! You guys rock! I'm sorry it took so long to get here, but I've finally reached the ending of my story! I'll also be posting some "extras" along with this. I love you all, I don't own _Victorious_, and what an adventure this has been, huh? Here you go. :)**

It had been months since I became Jadelyn again. I even redid my locker. Now, my locker was a very princess-y pink, covered with the chains and necklaces that I used to wear all the time as Jade. Most of my classmates had gotten used to me. Some of the really prissy girls were still a little frightened by me. Sinjin somehow got it in his head that, now that I was nice, he had a shot with me. That took a bit of fending off. Eli and I went on a couple of dates. It was super awkward, though, and we decided that staying friends was the best thing. He did end up asking me to the prom, though, because neither of us had dates.

It was an actual Prom this year. Caterina and some girls from her costume design class stepped up to the plate and organized everything. Robbie and his theater tech buddies helped build everything. The theme this year was Magical Forest. The Asphalt Café looked like something from another world. Lights were strung through a canopy of fake trees that looked _so real_. The ground had been carpeted in a green, mossy carpeting.

I pulled at the hems of my dress. It was maroon, with one strap that made its way into a criss-cross patter on the back. It was poofy, and had a few layers of skirt. I had on black patent leather heals. I had my hair pulled into a side ponytail with my layers twisted in elaborate patterns, held together by bobby pins with small pearls on the ends. Caterina did it.

She was in my green dress, the one from sixth grade. I was kind of amazed that it fit her, although I wasn't really surprised. It made the red of her hair pop, and "Cat" claimed that she looked like Christmas. Her hair was up in a loose, with the stray ends captured into ringlets with my curling iron. She had on tall white patent leather heals. She had decided not to bring a date, because she really didn't want to go with Robbie (who, thanks to my example, had come out to us as bisexual), and she couldn't risk asking Andre and ending up in the same situation that I did with Beck.

Eli had on a nice suit, with a maroon tie. I forced him to match with me, going tie shopping with him to make sure he got the right shade. _That _was an experience.

Beck brought some girl named Mary. She was really pretty. She had on this light blue dress with crystals lining the sides.

Andre brought Tori. He swore to me that it was just as friends, and I swore the exact same thing backward and forward to Caterina. Tori's dress was a light peach color. It was floor length, with a halter top that flowed immediately into the train, synching a bit just around her cleavage. She looked absolutely beautiful. Her hair was pin-straight, pulled back into a loose, sparkly clip at the nape of her neck. She had on tan pumps.

We all met in the middle of the dance floor and were dancing together. I'd like to say something romantic happened. Maybe I could say that "Rush" came on, and Tori pulled me into a tango, not caring who watches. And we lived happily ever after.

I can't say that though, because that didn't happen.

What did happen is a bit of a secret.

But it's okay. I'm a girl who knows a thing or two about keeping secrets.

Halfway through a Taylor Swift song (and I still have no idea why Eli knows every word to all of them), I felt a delicate hand tugging at my wrist. I turned to see Tori with a gleam in her eyes. I smiled, a little bit confused, a little bit excited, and a little bit wary.

She pulled me away from the crowd of people and behind some bushes around the corner of the building.

"Tori!" I cried, brushing bits of bush off of me.

"I'm sorry," she grimaced, "I just know how much you hate the janitor's closet, and I figured here we could at least here the music."

"Well," I asked, "what's up?"

"I was an idiot," Tori began, "I was scared and stupid. I _never_ stopped thinking about you. I don't know who I am, and I'm still trying to figure it all out. But I want you there with me. I need you there with me."

"Tori," I started, "last time you and I…figured stuff out, you ran away. You told me that we never were anything. You hurt me. So much. I don't think I can…"

"Jay-jay, listen," Tori tried again, using the nickname she'd come to call me, "I. Like. You. A lot. I don't know what it means. I'm not saying that it would be happiness and rainbows. We wouldn't be able to tell anyone. But I want to be with you. I want to snuggle together and watch a movie. I want to kiss those glossed lips until mine are just as moisturized. I want to take your hand as we work on homework together and just sit there in each other's company in peace like the world is our oyster."

"I don't think that expression really fits," I mumbled, trying to keep a straight face.

"That's not…"Tori sputtered.

"Oh, shut up!" I cried. I threw my arms around her neck and I kissed her. I slipped my fingers through the back of her hair, careful not to mess it up too much, and put another on her jawbone. Her arms wrapped themselves around my waist, one sliding up to the small of my back, pulling me closer.

The kiss wasn't sexy and exploratory and I can't use a lot of descriptive words. It was simple and elegant and we stood there, locked in each other's embrace, barely moving, until the song ended. It was amazing.

I delicately untangled myself from Tori and took a deep breath. I noticed her breathing was heavy as well. I smiled, and she smiled back. I glanced down at our hands, which were very close to each other. I closed the proximity by grabbing one of hers, lacing our fingers together. She gave my hand a squeeze.

"Let's get out of here," I suggested.

"But I like the music!" Tori complained.

"Not out of the prom, dummy," I explained, "out of the bushes! Why don't we stay back here, on the sidewalk, and just have time for us? Dance, hold hands, whatever you want."

"Us?" Tori asked hesitantly.

"If you want there to be an 'us.'" I replied.

"I'd really liked that," Tori told me squeezing my hand and pecking me on the cheek. I gripped it lightly as we stepped out of the bushes and onto the blacktop. She let go of my hand and placed her arms around my neck. I settled mine around her hips and together we settled into the perfect slow dance.

Time passed quickly after that. Over the summer, Tori and I were nearly inseperable. As far as her parents knew, we'd just overcome our differences to become best friends. To our friends, we playfully bickered, but only Eli picked up on the flirting hidden inside each snide remark. I know Eli and Beck both knew exactly what was going on between us, but some unspoken rule had neither of us say it out loud. It wasn't an uncomfortable elephant in the room; it just was what it was.

Once school started, it was hidden hand holds beneath the lunch table, quick kisses during our free periods in the janitor's closet, dates at the movie theater every weekend, or times at my house or hers when no one was home and we just snuggled beneath a blanket, watching a movie. We didn't rush anything. We took it one day at a time, enjoying each other's company.

One day, we were doing homework in Tori's bedroom floor, next to her bed. She looked up and stated, very simply, "I love you." Then she went back to her work. I took her pencil out of her hand, before replacing it with my own. I gave it a squeeze.

"I love you, too," I told her, staring into those perfect, chocolate brown eyes.

I don't know how long we sat like that, hands held, enjoying each other's company.

It was everything I'd ever wanted.

For some reason, she wanted it too. I didn't care if I had to keep it a secret for now. This moment was perfect.

Not letting go of her hand, I reached over into my bag, pulling out a red chord, strung with beads. I used one hand to try and get it over her head. She giggled, and tried to help me by shaking her head and trying to bite the chord. She successfully managed to lick my hand three times before I got the string to hang around her neck. I leaned back against her bed, and stared happily at the girl I loved, who, for some uncanny reason, loved me back, despite all of my flaws and deceits and quirks. With her free hand, she fiddled with the beads around her neck.

Purple, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, L, U, V, heart, Y, A, pink, purple, pink, purple, pink, purple.

I pulled her into me and kissed her forehead. We sat like that for a while, just enjoying the fresh air coming in through the open window, looking forward to the future. We were completely, one hundred percent ourselves, with no lies, no secrets.

We were us.


	29. Live Like There's No Tomorrow

**A/N: So, to wrap things up, any qualms or queries on my goofs and on the strangely titled chapters shall be answered! Well, more like a list of all the songs that I used, just in case you ever wondered what they were, and my explanations to the goofs that I actually caught.**

**Update: I fixed all the goofs, so now this page is just fun facts!**

For some reason, in this story, there are Apples and Pears. Why I ended up having iPods and PearPhones is beyond me. That just sort of happened.

Trina isn't really mentioned at all in this story except offhandedly by Tori. That is because she has nothing to do with Jade's life, really. So she wasn't part of the story.

For those of you who have never seen _Chicago_, and were confused by the ending to "The Cell Block Tango," it was a reference to these lines in the song: "Well, I was in such a state of shock, I completely blacked out. I can't remember a thing. It wasn't until later, when I was washing the blood off my hands, that I even knew they were dead. They had it coming, they had it coming, they had it coming all along. I didn't do it, but if I'd done it, how could you tell me that I was wrong?"

Eli is not supposed to be that random guy from the pilot episode of _Victorious_ with the weird voice who's there for, like, two seconds. He was supposed to be a little bit more like Eli from _Degrassi_, as Eli tries to get Imogene and Fiona to be friends. It was a random name. I didn't realize that Eli was a legit character.

The "42" reference is from the movie (and book, as I was told) _A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_.

Speaking of movies, I genuinely love _Practical Magic_. If you read this whole story and never stopped to think about possibly watching it yourself, shame on you. You'll love it. It's about witches, and it has Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman, and one really attractive cop whose name I don't actually know.

Johnny Craig can't rap, just like Jadelyn so kindly pointed out before she had ballet practice with Beck. _However_, he can sing pretty well. I encourage you to check out Emarosa's music. It's really different than anything else I listen to. It is partially screamo, depending on the song, but Set It Off Like Napalm has no screaming sections in it, so listen to that if nothing else.

Believe it or not, I am actually a Bade shipper. I don't ship Jori. However, I do believe that Jori makes for the best fanfiction. So, if you were wary about this story and are inwardly cringing at the fact that you just read a Jori story and does that make you a Jori shipper and what is going on – stop. You can like Bade or Rade or Bori or Tandre or Jandre or Rori or whatever it is that you like. I am okay with that.

All of the little academic tidbits in here are fact, things I learned in school. Well, the location of Lacey Park I had to Google, but that's it. Oh, and Trigonometry has nothing to do with triangles. That was my mistake. I actually got yelled at by my math teacher for that assumption. Well, more like our class as a whole got yelled at for that assumption, but that's beside the point.

For those of you who were confused, the reason HA History was teaching a unit on the French Revolution and they had to write a paper on the Genocide in Rwanda is because I myself was working on my huge Human Rights paper and learning about the French Revolution while I wrote this. (Same class, but we were sort of doing two things at once.)

Here is the song list, as promised:

The title is from the lyrics to "Copacabana" by Barry Manilow.

Introduction is not a song. That I know of. If it actually is a song, I apologize.

West Side Story is not a song. Great musical, though.

Stop! In the Name of Love – by the Supremes (also put into a mashup by the male cast of _Glee_)

Don't Go Breaking My Heart – Elton John and Kiki Dee

19th Nervous Breakdown – the Rolling Stones

As Long As You Love Me – the Backstreet Boys

Listen To Your Heart – DHT (originally by Roxette)

Cold Hearted – Paula Abdul

Getting Ready – from _13_

Walking in Memphis – Marc Cohn

Fix You – Coldplay

The Cell Block Tango – from _Chicago_

Turning Tables – Adele

Learn My Lesson – Daughtry

Keep Breathing – Ingrid Michaelson

Chelsea – the Summer Set

Human Nature – Glee Cast (Originally by Michael Jackson, obviously)

Do You Believe in Magic – Aly & AJ (Originally by Lovin' Spoonful)

You Better Believe – Max Morgan

Cough Syrup – Glee Cast (originally by Young the Giant)

Set It Off Like Napalm – Emarosa

Trust Me – The Fray

Eighty Eights – Farewell

If I Die Young – The Band Perry

Hands Clean – Alanis Morissette

Give It Up – I Fight Dragons

The Rising – Bruce Springsteen

Ours – Taylor Swift

Live Like There's No Tomorrow – Selena Gomez & The Scene (or perhaps without The Scene, I'm not entirely sure on that one)

If any of you want to know anything else, anything at all, review, PM me, whatever you want. I will get back to you with some long-winded answer that probably contains more information than what you were looking for.

I truly love every darling person that read this. Each review made me so happy, because this is the first creative writing piece I've done in a really long time. It was really nice to just fall back into this loop where I could fall into a world completely not my own and control what happened, or, rather, watch as _the characters_ controlled what happened and I changed whatever I was significantly opposed to. It's been fun, catch ya on the flip side! Wait, does no one actually say that? My bad. Laterz.


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